Literature
Literature is constantly changing, and so it happened with the Colombian Literature.
During the Colonial period (1499-1810) the Spaniards wrote journeys and diaries based on their experiences in the New World. With the conquest, the native/indigenous groups lost most of their heritage and culture and adopted a completely new cosmology and political and economic life, including language. Spanish became the spoken and written language, and the major literary topics included conquest narratives, chronicles, religious devotion and love themes.
During the process of Independence, Colombian literature was strongly influenced by the political motivations of the moment. Writers became very passionate and emotional, coming close to Romanticism. After the Independence in 1810 the country lived a strong period of political instability because the government couldn't decide weather to be a federal or centralist state. Under those conditions, literature was the colorful depiction of the peasant life, tied to strong criticism of society and government.
The industrialization in Latin America in the 20th century generated new literary movements: some reacted against the previous literature of romanticism. Modernism's mains topics were ugliness and mystery. Another movement was Stone and Sky (Spanish: Piedra y Cielo) characterized by its hypersensitivity, emotion and insolence against consecrated and canonized forms.
The violent events in Colombia during the 1940-50s and the considerable urban expansion influenced the formation of Nadaismo (Nothing-ist) movement, which was the Colombian expression of numerous avant-garde movements. It included elements of existentialism and nihilism: with a dynamic incorporation of city life and generally irreverent, iconoclastic flavor.
Finally the Latin American Boom happened. It was a flourishing of literature, poetry adn criticism in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, when writers from the region explored new ideas and came to renown in a way that had not happened previously. The Boom novel treated time as nonlinear, often using more than one perspective or narrative voice and feature great number of new and inveted words. Another notable characteristic included the treatment of both the rural and urban settings, an emphasis on both the political and historical events of the region, as well as "questioning the region". Boom literature breaks down the barriers between the fantastical and the mundane, transforming this mixture into a new reality.
Of the Boom writers, Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the most representative of this movement and is most closely associated with the use of magical realism.
Reference
Wikipedia. (2016, May 18). Colombian Literature retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_literature
About Colombia
Among the Latin American countries, Colombia is perhaps the most formal, most reserved, and most closely related with the traditions of fifteenth century "conquistator" Spain. This is largely due to the fact that Spain set up its first viceroy in the New World in what became Bogota, the current capital of Colombia.
Colombia was one of the first countries in Latin America to gain independence from Spain. The independence from Spain left a stratified and fractured society that has destabilized government after government, also while being challenged by homegrown guerrillas groups, and drug cartel bosses.
Though Colombians are quick to impress non-Colombians how different the country really is from what is shown in the media and the mistaken conception the have towards the country.
Situated in the Northwest of South America, it's a unitary constitutional republic characterized by is ethnical diversity: its people descending from the original native inhabitants, Spanish colonists, Africans originally brought to the country as slaves and all the 20th century immigrants from Europe and the Middle East: all contributing to a diverse cultural heritage.
It is the only country in South America that has coastlines with the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, it also has a varied geography and an imposing landscape with the highlands of the Andes mountains. The Colombian territory also encompasses the Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland desert.
Reference
Text retrieved from
Foster, D. (2002). The Global Etiquette Guide to Mexico and Latin America. (pp. 93-115). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Wikipedia. (2016, May 2). Colombia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia
Websites
- The Culture Trip (Colombia)The Culture Trip: the best art, food, culture and travel.
- Laura Restrepo by Jaime ManriqueLiterature: Interview to Laura Restrepo.
(Bomb Magazine)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, also known as Gabo, was born in 1928 in the town of Aracataca, Colombia. Latin America's prominent man of letters, he is considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He began his writing career as a journalist and is author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. Reality was an important theme among his works, they reflected the reality of life in Colombia under the literary genre of Magical Realism.
Magical Realism or Marvelous Realm is characterized by its fantastical elements: portraits fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance. The existence of these fantastic features in the real world provides the basis for magical realism: writers do not invent new worlds but reveal the magical in this world, the supernatural real blends with the natural, familiar world. magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences: therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal adn common. Explaining the supernatural world or presenting it as extraordinary would immediately reduce its legitimacy to the natural world.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Call Number: PQ8180.17.A73 C68 1983ISBN: 9781400034710Publication Date: 1981A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned the his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover: and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister. Yet If everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, and as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion, and entire society—not just a pair of murderers—is put on trial.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Call Number: PQ8180.17.A73 A813 1989ISBN: 0140119906Publication Date: 1989A man with the soul of a poet and the patience of a saint, Florentino Ariza has waited more than half a century for the beautiful and haughty Fermina Daza, who revoked her promise to be his wife and instead married the wealthy Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Florentino Ariza's unrequited love survives fifty-one years, nine months, and four days, a time filled with encounters and travels, births, deaths, and poetry. As Fermina and Dr. Urbino build their life together, Florentino creates his own live, remaining loyal to Florentina in his heat while succumbing to 622 "long-term liaisons". But is only when Dr. Urbino finally dies that Florentino's life really begins.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Call Number: PQ8180.17.A73 C513 2001ISBN: 0060750766Publication Date: 1967One Hundred Years Of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death and tragicomedy of man. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Bundia family ones sees all mankind, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo one sees all of Latin America.
Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility—the variety of life, the endless of death, the search of peace and truth— Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of the government, Gabriel Garcia Marquez always writes the simplicity and purity that are the mark of a master.
Reference
Garcia Marquez, G. (1999). One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York, NY: Bookspan.
Wikipedia. (2016, April 24). Magic Realism. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism
Image retrieved from Google Images http://www.ntrguadalajara.com/evidimg/2015-04-14_11-04-44___1701.png
Outstanding Authors
Juan Gabriel Vasquez was born in Bogota in 1973. He studied Latin American literature and then started his journey as a writer. Vasquez is "one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature," according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing—and his literary star—even higher. His books have been published in seventeen languages world-wide and won the Alfaguara Novel Prize in Spain and an English PEN award.
Amazon. (2016). The Sound of Things Falling. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Things-Falling-Gabriel-V%C3%A1squez/dp/159463274X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464365492&sr=8-1&keywords=juan+gabriel+vasquez
Vasquez, J.G. (2012). The Sounds of Things Falling. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
Image tetrieved from Google Images http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1418864/images/o-JUAN-GABRIEL-VASQUEZ-facebook.jpg
Laura Restrepo is a Colombian author who began writing what were mainly political columns in her mid-twenties. She voiced her opinions loudly over the failing peace treaties and the conflict that was going on and even received death threats and was forced into a six-year exile in Mexico. Many of the investigations she did ended up as plots or ideas in many of her novels.
Image retrieved from Google Images http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1203684625p5/33407.jpg
Wikipedia. (2016, February 29). Laura Restrepo retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Restrepo
William Ospina is a Colombian poet, essayist and novelist. He has taken extreme political positions, like supporting the Bolivarian Revolution led from Venezuela by Hugo Chavez and has also repeatedly expressed his support for a negotiated solution to the Colombian conflict.
Image retrieved from Google Images http://www.losandes.com.ar/files/image/2014/10/01/799731.jpg
Wikipedia. (2016, May 18). William Ospina retrieved from https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ospina
Daniel Samper Ospina is a Colombian comedian, writer, journalist and columnist. He is the director of adult magazine SoHo, and also writes for Semana Magazine. Though a recognized columnist in Colombia, Samper hardly engages in serious political analysis: rather, he is a satirical commentator whose main objective is to deprecate politicians (mostly conservative convictions) under the umbrella of satire and black humor.
Image rtrieved from Google Images http://reddeperiodismocultural.fnpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Daniel2-1.jpg
Wikipedia. (2016, May 19). Daniel Samper Ospina retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Samper_Ospina
Books
The Sound of Things Falling by Call Number: PQ8180.32 .A797 R8513 2012ISBN: 9781594487484Publication Date: 2013-08-01In the city of Bogota, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar's Medellin cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia's streets and in the skies above. Back the, Antonio witnessed a friend's murder, an event that hunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend's family have been shaped by his country's recent violent past. His journey takes him back to the 1960s and a world on the brick of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.
Delirium by ISBN: 9780307278043Publication Date: 2006In this remarkably nuanced novel, both gripping detective story and a passionate, devastating tale of eros and insanity in Colombia, internationally acclaimed author Laura Restrepo delves into the minds of four characters. There's Agustina, a beautiful woman from an upper-class family who is caught in the throes if madness: her husband Aguilar, a man passionately in love with his wife and determined to rescue her from insanity: Agustina's former lover Midas, a drug-trafficker and money-lauderer: and Nicolas. Agustina's grandfather. Through the blend od these distinct voices, Restrepo creates a searing portrait of a society battered by war and corruption, as well as an intimate look to the daily lives of people struggling to stay sane in an unstable reality.
Once upon a Time There Was Colombia by ISBN: 9789588156644Publication Date: 2006The complexity of a country in which violence and internal armed conflict coexist with enormous cultural, natural, and human riches is captured in this illuminating essay by a Colombian poet. A refreshed view of Colombia is proposed, shedding light on the possibility of a future in which the nation may become reconcile with itself. The accompanying photographs, all previously un published, are taken by some of Colombian's best photographers.
Salvese Quien Pueda (Spanish Edition) by ISBN: 9789587584080Publication Date: 2012The concept of this new book is the end of the world, and in the same way it happened in the Great Flood, where only a couple species survived, in this new government some "animals" will be safe, others will drown... This book is a collection of the author's columns published in 2011, offering an ironic look of Colombia today. The characters from this book continue ironizing the reality of the country and showing the readers a country much more cruel. (Available only in Spanish)
The Early Cuadro de Costumbres in Colombia by ISBN: 9780807890264Publication Date: 1956-01-01This study traces the development of the sketch of manners (cuadro de costumbres), beginning in 1838 until the end of the century. Although the Colombian sketch is not in general distinguished artistically, its scope and variety of subject produce a richly detailed picture of the life, people, and institutions of mid-century Colombia. The author shows the influence of the Spaniards Larra and Mesonero Romanos, and discusses authors of El Mosaico literary group and their predecessors who also wrote in the costumbrista style.
