A Literary Tour of South America

...Mexico...

...The dominant figures in Brazilian poetry since World War II have been Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Joao Cabral de Melo Neto and Vinicius de Moraes What is truly extraordinary, and unimaginable m any other country, is that there is no rivalry between the three, though their styles have little similarity Each regards the other two as Brazil's greatest poets Drummond has written little verse in recent years, keeping m the public eye through a newspaper column where he comments obliquely but bitingly on conformism, bureaucracy and dictatorship The poems of Cabral, who serves m the diplomatic corps, are uncompromisingly dense and never political, nonetheless the depth of feeling with which this "puritan" Northeasterner presents the tragic plight of the humble in that desperately blighted part of Brazil has proved inspiring to the young rebels...

...Like the best known writers of most South American countries, Mario Vargas Llosa lives abroad The tradition began with Cesar Vallejo, the great Peruvian poet who lived in Madrid and Moscow and died in Pans Vallejo was a Communist, but Vargas Llosa is another of the neo-Marxist novelists who abhor totalitarianism, at least the Soviet variety His most recent book (untranslated) is a remarkable 600-page conversation with Garcia Marquez, mostly about the sources and implications of One Hundred Years The finest living Peruvian poet, Carlos German Belli, lives m Lima and writes about the hard life of his country in a low-keyed and difficult style Trinidad...

...Carlos Fuentes continues to dominate the scene among Mexican novelists, just as his older friend, Octavio Paz, continues to be regarded as Mexico's greatest poet-past or present Paz's difficult poetry, symbolist and surrealist, reaches principally other poets, though during the period when he served as Mexico's ambassador to India, a less severe intellectualism could be detected in his work When antigovernment demonstrators were massacred on the eve of the 1968 Mexican Olympiad, Paz resigned his post and wrote an electrifying poem of protest, afterward he began, in his self-imposed English and American exile, to acquire a more popular following...

...Derek Walcott, who writes his poems and plays m English, can hardly be considered a Latin American, yet his country, within sight of the South American coast, shares most of the problems of its underdeveloped neighbors Walcott's work penetrates far more deeply into the tragedies and triumphs of transplanted Africa than any Brazilian-or for that matter, North American-writer thus far has...

...The novel of the decade in Latin America, perhaps of the century, has been Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude Not since Don Quixote, one might venture, has any novel in the Spanish language been so widely acclaimed-and read Even in Brazil, generally indifferent to Hispanic writing, a translation into Portuguese has sold phenomenally Garcia Marquez is not a political writer, but certainly his comedy-fantasy of mythical Maconda presents the accepted social order in a devastating light, there are clear hints, too, that American "imperialism' has been responsible for keeping its corrupt villains in power In private life this Colombian writer, who lives in Barcelona, is close to Cortazar, Mexico s Carlos Fuentes, Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, and the other writers of the non-Muscovite Left Like them, he has been well received m Havana...

...The lyrics of this record are a veiled protest against repressive government (Some of Chico's earlier songs were censored, as were those of his friend Geraldo Vandri, now in exile ) Among novelists, Erico Verissimo is probably the boldest in voicing his opposition to dictatorship Jorge Amado once a Marxist, today focuses exclusively on the rich religious and sexual exuberance of the ' African" coastal state of Bahia Clarice Lispector, also nonpolitical, has become, since Joao Guimaraes Rosa s death four and a half years ago, the novelist most respected by the critics...

...Chile...

...Argentina...

...Perspectives A LITERARY TOUR OF SOUTH AMERICA BY SELDEN RODMAN Apart from Fidel Castro's Cuba, which has yet to grant me a visa, I have visited every Latin American country during the past five years and talked with most of the leading poets and novelists My travels have convinced me of three things First, nowhere else m the world today is there such a surge of creativity or so many writers (poets for the most part) of major stature Second, although naional boundaries have kept them traditionally isolated, there is beginning to be some intercommunication, stimulated mainly by the translation of most of their important works into English And third, all the Hemisphere's writers-with the notable exceptions of the Communists Pablo Neruda and Miguel Angel Asturias at one extreme, and the conservatives Jorge Luis Borges and Joao Cabral de Melo Neto at the other-have a common political philosophy that could be described as socialist, anti-Establishment and antiauthoritarian...

...Let us take a brief tour of seven South American countries that are sending out particularly strong literary vibrations (as the Central American states, on the whole, are not...

...Selden Rodman's South America of the Poets, first published in 1970 has just been reprinted as a University of Southern Illinois paperback...

...Where do we fit into all this-if at all' There is an enormous reservoir of respect for American culture in Latin America, but it is diminishing, except perhaps in Brazil Neruda's debt to Whitman, Garcia Marquez's to Faulkner, Cabral's to Eliot, are significant But I have encountered no familiarity with American poets of the post-World War II period except in those rare cases where the poets (Ginsberg, Lowell) have actually traveled south at their own expense The United States Information Agency, instead of spending money publicizing astronauts and publishing dated tracts, should be subsidizing such travels-and sponsoring guest appearances here by those outstanding Latin American writers whose names, faces and achievements are unknown to the American public...

...Colombia...

...Borges dominates the literary scene here only in deference to his immense reputation abroad Neither his poems nor his stories have imitators m the homeland-perhaps because they are inimitable, but also because they do not reflect the country's cynicism and rootless experimentalism The most admired writer of the past decade is certainly Julio Cortazar, though probably few enjoy his iconoclastic prose In Pans, where he has lived since 1951, Cortazar is identified with the non-Muscovite Left, his novels, however, make no identification with the oppressed Manuel Puig's Betrayed by Rita Havworth (published in the U S last fall by Dutton) is the most talked-about novel of the younger generation a phonographically accurate "recording" of mane conversation in a "Peronist" middle-class family of the sort that has brought Argentina to its present political no man's land...

...It is hard to say yet whether the class war currently tearing this country apart will be reflected m its literature Until Salvador Allende came to power in September 1970, the non-CP Leftist poet Nicanor Parra (whose Emergency Poems has just been brought out in English by New Directions) was most popular among the youth for his cool and witty "antipoems " Neruda, who had dominated all poetry in the Spanish language since the '30s, was out of favor His rolling, Whitmanesque affirmations of common life, Chilean geography and continental solidarity were beginning to be regarded as romantic and rhetorical it not downright insincere Whether the Nobel Laureate has regained some of his influence with the young as a result of his own and his party's substantial contributions to the Popular Front victory remains to be seen...

...Brazil...

...Peru...

...The sensuous, lyrical, worldly Vinicius, an aristocrat by birth like the other two, is Cabral's opposite and the guru of the uneasy youth Ever since the bossa nova style developed out of the musical score of his famous Black Orpheus, Vinicius has been participating actively with the young composers, guitarists and singing stars of Brazil's enchanting popular music The hottest" of these composer-lyricists currently is Chico Buaique de Holanda, himself the son of a well-known elite historian Chico idolizes the 59-year-old poet-who in turn regards the lyrics of the younger man's latest hit record, Constrgcao, as the outstanding poetry being created by the generation now in its 20s...