The Latin American Boom Research Guide: "Boomistas"

Isabel Angelica Allende Llona is a Chilean-American writer, known for her works with Latin American literature and magical realism. Her first novel, The House of Spirits, began as a letter to her dying grandfather. She is one of the most widely read writers of the Spanish language.

Jorge Leal Amado de Faria was a Brazilian writer. His works are best known for their modernist style and theme of religious syncretism. He served as part of the Chamber of Deputies for São Paulo from 1946-1948. He was the 23rd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, a chair which he occupied for 40 years.

Albalucía Ángel Marulanda is a Colombian writer and folksinger. She initially studied and worked as a folk singer in Europe, and began writing in the late 1960s. Many of her works are centered on the themes of women's rights and women's history.

Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Guatemalan writer, poet-diplomat, and journalist. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967, with recognition for his contribution to bringing attention to the importance of indigenous culture. He is also recognized as a surrealist writer, with many features from the modernist styles, and one of the precursors to the Boom.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante was a Cuban writer, translator, and critic. His parents were founding members of the Cuban Communist Party, and he was a supporter of Fidel Castro until around 1961. His work, Tres tristes tigres, has been favorably compared to James Joyce's Ulysses, but he had expressed disdain to describe his best-known works as "novel" and the label "Boom" itself.

Juan Carlos Onetti Borges was a Uruguayan writer, and one of the senior members of Generación del 45. In 1974, he was imprisoned for 6 months, due to his participation in selecting Nelson Marra's "The Bodyguard" as the winner of the literary magazine Marcha's annual contest, despite "sensitive political themes." He left for Spain after being release, and continued writing there.

Alejo Carpentier Valmont was a Cuban writer, journalist, and musicologist. Despite his European upbringing, he closely identified with Cuba, where he lived shortly after his birth until 1912, and returned to in 1921. Carpentier aligned himself with revolutionary movements, such as Fidel Castro's Communist Revolution, and was jailed and exiled for his leftist politics.

Rosario Castellanos Figueroa was a Mexican writer, considered one of Mexico's most important literary voices of the 20th century. She wrote extensively about cultural and gender oppression, and contributed some of her essays to Excelsior from 1963-1974, a daily newspaper in Mexico. Her works have greatly influenced feminist theories and cultural studies in Mexico.

José Manuel Donoso Yáñez was a Chilean writer and journalist. He declared his self-imposed exile c. 1960s-1970s, including to the United States and Spain, as a form of protest against Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. He also taught English at multiple universities. After his return to Chile, he conducted literature workshops, which many other writers attended.

Rosario Ferré Ramírez de Arellano was a Puerto Rican writer, and former First Lady of Puerto Rico. She received her education in both Puerto Rico and the United States. In 1986, she self-translated her first novel Maldito Amor, and began writing the first versions of her other novels in English.

Elena Garro was a Mexican writer and journalist, considered a seminal, one of the earliest examples, and a leading figure of Magical Realism. However, she rejected this label, which she considered a “cheap marketing label.” She lived in exile for 23 years, including in Paris, for her controversial remarks regarding the Mexican student movements of the late 1960s.

José María Andrés Fernando Lezama Lima was a Cuban writer, considered one of the most influential figures of Cuban Literature, and whose works are known for their Neo-Baroque qualities. His first novel, Paradiso, is a semi-autobiographical piece, which depicts his early life in Havana.

Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector was a Ukrainian-born Brazilian writer. Her family was Jewish, and moved from Western Ukraine to Brazil during her infancy to avoid Soviet pogroms committed by authorities after WWI. She attended law school in Rio de Janeiro, where she began publishing her first written works.

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine writer, librarian, and lecturer, best known as the originator of Magical Realism, and also acknowledged as a bridge between modernism and post-modernism. He was also director of the National Public Library, and a professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires.

For a profile-oriented guide, visit the Gumberg Library's Jorge Luis Borges Research Guide.

María Luisa Bombal Anthes was a Chilean writer, best known for her surrealist narratives, which some have considered as an influence towards magical realism. Even though her works are commonly described for their poetic and sentimental inclinations, she described their organization to be around logic and symmetry.

Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral, was a Chilean writer, educator, and poet-diplomat. She was the first Latin American to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945. She published her early poems under pseudonyms in local newspaper, and continued so as she worked as a teacher. She also advocated for educational reform and increased access to education.

Silvina Ocampo was an Argentine writer and visual artist. She was the sister of Victoria Ocampo, founder and editor of the Argentine literary magazine, Sur. She was also a collaborator of Jorge Luis Borges, who considered her “one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language.”

Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo was an Argentine writer, as well as founder and publisher of the literary magazine Sur. Under Juan Perón's presidency, Europeanist writers were under threat, including those related to Sur. She received a nomination for the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1970.

Cristina Peri Rossi is a Uruguayan writer and translator, considered a leading figure in the post-Boom period of the 1960s. In 1972, after the Uruguayan civic-military dictatorship censored her works, she began living in Barcelona, where she is also active as a journalist and a vocal political commentator for civil liberties, freedom of expression, and against religious extremism.

Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican poet and diplomat. He was the grandson of liberal intellectual Ireneo Paz, through whom he was exposed to Mexican and European literature. His works of poetry drew various range of influences, including Buddhism, surrealism, existentialism, identity, and time.

Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne was an Argentine writer. His works are known for his writing style which incorporates elements of multiple mediums and points of view. He relocated from Argentina to Mexico in 1973, where he stayed until his death, because he identified his left-leaning political views in comparison to a forthcoming rightist wave.

Augusto Roa Bastos was a Paraguayan writer, journalist, and professor. He fought in the Chaco War during his teenage years, which influenced his pacifism. He was also forced to flee to Argentine for speaking out against President Higinio Moríñgo in 1947. He wrote that this exile brought him a new perspective on his writing.

Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno was a Mexican writer and photographer. He co-founded the literary journal Pan. His second book, Pedro Páramo, is considered a highly influential piece among other Latin American writers. Like his literary works, his photographs also captured the rural Mexican life.

Ernesto Sábato was an Argentine writer, painter, and physicist. Prior to his writing career, he was granted a research fellowship in atomic radiation. He began writing after World War II due to an “existential crisis.” His writings ranged from existentialism, metaphysics, politics, and humanism.

Luisa Valenzuela Levinson is an Argentine writer, most notably known as a post-Boom writer. Her best-known works were written in response to the National Reorganization Process, a military dictatorship of the late 1970s-early 1980s Argentina. She also consequently moved to the United States, and parts of her works were censored.