presentation

[summeronly]

Hi

i have a presentation on any topic in literature

i want to talk about latin American literature

but i am not sure so far i need your suggestions about topics

[superunknown]

This is a whole new world to uncover. Latin American literature, especially from the creative "boom" in the 60s, is some of the best and most important in the 20th century, and includes several Nobel laureates and many classics. Some writers to check out:

Jorge Luis Borges - short story writer, probably the most influential Latin American writer, and nearly every one of the authors that came during the boom was in some way influenced by him. Ficciones and The Aleph are probably his best collections.

Gabrie Garcia Marquez - probably the most famous and enduring Latin American author, he wrote the classics "100 Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" along with many other novels and short stories. One of my favourites. Winner of the 1982 Nobel prize.

Julio Cortazar - Short story writer, extremely underappreciated outside of the Spanish-speaking world, there have been translations made but from what I hear they don't do him too much justice. However he is a very important writer from the boom and, stylistically and philosophically, Borges's descendant. His crowning achievement is the novel Hopscotch (Rayuela), which, as wikipedia says: The book can be read either in direct sequence from chapter 1 to 56, or by hopscotching through the entire set of 155 chapters--except chapter 55--according to a table provided by the author that leaves the reader, finally, in an infinite loop between the last two chapters in the sequence. There are several other ways to read the novel, such as reading only the odd or even pages, or choosing chapters in completely random order.

Mario Vargas Llosa - Most known for his novels The Green House, The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros), and Conversation in the Cathedral.

Carlos Fuentes - Best known work is The Death of Artemio Cruz. Nobel laureate.

Pablo Neruda - One of the most important poets of the 20th century. Another Nobel laureate.

Isabel Allende - The House of the Spirits catapulted her to fame. Eva Luna is another noteworthy work by her.

Alejo Carpentier - One of the early writers from the boom period, his novel The Kingdom of This World was important in the development of magical realism which became a major concern for boom-era Latin American writers.

[Morten]

Borges, Borges, Borges. Can't get around him. He is the undeniable grand-daddy of Spanish-languaged literature. No one else comes close. Not even the vastly overrated Cervantes, in my opinion.

[Jason Renzi]

there's always 'house on mango street' by sandra cisneros...
and tomas rivera's '...and the earth did not devour him' has a lot to work with as well...

[Scheherazade]

Such a wide subject. Maybe you can narrow it down a little to have a more focused presentation?

Whose works have you read?

[Jason Renzi]

Borges, Borges, Borges. Can't get around him. He is the undeniable grand-daddy of Spanish-languaged literature. No one else comes close. Not even the vastly overrated Cervantes, in my opinion.

Cervantes is vastly overrated?...i must ask you to elaborate on this claim...

[summeronly]

hey

thanks for your sharing

happy to see you here

i read for Gabrie Garcia Marquez "100 Years of Solitude"

it is my favourite

i read also for Paulo Coelho

[superunknown]

Borges, Borges, Borges. Can't get around him. He is the undeniable grand-daddy of Spanish-languaged literature. No one else comes close. Not even the vastly overrated Cervantes, in my opinion.

1. No he isn't.
and
2. He was asking about Latin American literature, not Spanish...

[Morten]

Cervantes is vastly overrated?...i must ask you to elaborate on this claim...

Don Quixote is not a very great novel. Overrated, I think. Has its moments, but I felt very let down by all the hype. Luckily, I found other "expert" opinions sharing my disappointment (i.e. Nabokov, Martin Amis).

[summeronly]

i think first of introducing latin American literature
then talk about one or two of their great writers


what do you think?
how i can introduce latin American literature( background) successfully because i will introduce my colleagues to it for the first time
we had never take any thing about it ( only American and British)

[superunknown]

First off, Borges is not the grandaddy of all Spanish literature. Of Latin American literature maybe (there were others before him, but none had as much influence) but to dismiss all previous works of Spanish literature before him going all the way back to the Jarchas in the 12th century is just plain ignorant. How can you overlook El Lazarillo de Tormes, the first real picaresque novel which established the genre and which also fiercely criticised the church at a time when doing so was suicidal? There were many important Spanish poets in the Renaissance and Baroque eras such as Garcilaso de la Vega, Tirso de Molina, Francisco de Quevedo... Cervantes, whether you like him or not is THE most influential writer in all Spanish literature as Shakespeare, whether you like him or not, is in English, and Borges would have been the first to acknowledge that (in fact Borges even wrote a short story about Don Quixote, you might have come across it). He is closely followed in this respect by Lope de Vega who in his lifetime is estimated to have written over 2,000 plays (how that's physically possible, don't ask me).

Of course Borges is a giant in Spanish literature but to suggest that nothing of any worth was produced in that language until the 20th century just shows that you know nothing about it and should really do some research before saying anything as idiotic as that.

[Morten]

Of course Borges is a giant in Spanish literature but to suggest that nothing of any worth was produced in that language until the 20th century just shows that you know nothing about it and should really do some research before saying anything as idiotic as that.

Ha-ha, calm yourself. Why don't start off by quoting me on when and where I said that "nothing of any worth was produced in [spanish] language until the 20th century"?

Just because Cervantes wrote what is widely considered to be the first modern novel doesn't mean he is the greatest writer of the Spanish language. I still think Borges was a better writer. It's too early to talk about their influence - Cervantes has been dead for centures, Borges for mere decades.

[stlukesguild]

Borges, Borges, Borges. Can't get around him. He is the undeniable grand-daddy of Spanish-languaged literature. No one else comes close. Not even the vastly overrated Cervantes, in my opinion.

Don Quixote is not a very great novel. Overrated, I think. Has its moments, but I felt very let down by all the hype. Luckily, I found other "expert" opinions sharing my disappointment (i.e. Nabokov, Martin Amis).

Acckk! How does one begin to question such an assertion...? Especially when one has "experts" of the same mind such as Nabokov and Amis. Of course Tolstoy didn't like Shakespeare and Plato questioned Homer. It couldn't have been in any way related to the realization that none of the latter writers could in any way be imagined as equals to the figures they sought to dismiss, could it? I might also note that another "expert" writer, Dostoevski, spoke of Don Quixote as "the ultimate and most sublime word of human thinking". Certainly everyone is welcome to their own opinions. We have those who imagine Jack Kerouac as superior to Homer, and undoubtedly there are any number of readers who would place Dan Brown, Tolkein, or the Harry Potter novels before Shakespeare. Personally, I find Don Quixote to be a magnificent novel worth multiple readings... and this is in spite of the fact that I am a sworn lover of Borges. Borges surely felt the same considering his multiple references to Cervantes, Don Quixote as both novel and character, Sancho Panza, etc... in his short "ficciones", his poems, and his essays. Certainly the fact that Don Quixote is generally considered to be the first Western novel may be of only historical importance... but when one considers the wealth of writers deeply influenced by Cervantes including Tobias Smollett, Daniel Defoe,Henry Fielding, and undoubtedly Lawrence Sterne, as well as later novelists such as Scott, Dickens, Flaubert, Melville, and Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joachim Machado de Assis, and J.L. Borges himself ( to say nothing of the artists: Gustav Dore, Honore Daumier, Picasso, Salvador Dali, etc... nor of composers: Massenet, manuel de Falla, Richard Strauss, etc... nor theater, film, etc...) one can not be easily dismissive of his achievement. The first English translation of Don Quixote dates from as early as 1608 and there are more than suggestions that the great English writer read Cervantes. Some among the Baconians have suggested that not only did Sir Francis Bacon write the plays of Shakespeare (as well as the King James Bible) but he was also responsible for Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes, himself no literary slouch, also raised the possibility that Cervantes and Shakespeare were the same person. While such theories are undoubtedly absurd, they point to the status of Cervantes as standing shoulder to shoulder with the greatest literary achievements of all time.

Returning to the initial question... Latin American literature is surely an immense topic. What exactly is your focus? I mean that you can go back as far as the few existing MesoAmerican writings including the various codexes that date from period contemporaneous with the Middle-Ages in Europe, through the first Latin-American poet of any importance, Sor Juana Inez on through contemporary figures such as Llosa and Fuentes. If you are focusing upon the rise or maturity of latin American writing I would certainly hone in on Borges, Neruda, Cortazar, Carpentier and Garcia-Marquez. Other figures to consider (beyond the good examples already posted) would include Octavio Paz, Roberto Juarez, Homero Aridis, Augusto Monterroso, and Machado de Assis.

[B-Mental]

For some reason the book Wide Sargasso Sea comes to mind. It was a story about how a man drives a woman insane by taking her out of the Carribean.

[B-Mental]

Personally, I find Don Quixote to be a magnificent novel worth multiple readings... and this is in spite of the fact that I am a sworn lover of Borges. Borges surely felt the same considering his multiple references to Cervantes, Don Quixote as both novel and character, Sancho Panza, etc... in his short "ficciones", his poems, and his essays. Certainly the fact that Don Quixote is generally considered to be the first Western novel may be of only historical importance... but when one considers the wealth of writers deeply influenced by Cervantes including Tobias Smollett, Daniel Defoe,Henry Fielding, and undoubtedly Lawrence Sterne, as well as later novelists such as Scott, Dickens, Flaubert, Melville, and Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Well personally, I found the first book or half of the book to be downright hilarious! Then I just had to stop the plight of such a noble man was so depressing...and people called him crazy.