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CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE

PART II 21st CENTURY

by Sam Simon



Writers like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez dominated the Latin American “Boom,” of the mid-20th century. Marked perhaps by the frenzy that Roberto Bolaño created when he was first translated into English in 2003, we are currently experiencing a “new boom,” one represented by far more kinds of writers writing from many different backgrounds all across Latin America.

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Answer the following:

1. Camila Sosa Villada’s first book was this Trans bildungsroman, which took place in Cordoba, Argentina. Name the novel.


2.This Mexican novelist was awarded a Macarthur Genius Grant on the backs of books such as No One Will See Me Cry and The Iliac Crest.


3. The Argentinean writer Samanta Schweblin has been twice long-listed for the International Booker Prize for Mouthful of Birds and Little Eyes. Which book was she short-listed for?


4. This Cuban writer’s books include Call Me Cassandra and The Black Cathedral, both of which portray contemporary Afro-Cubans living in fraught situations.


5.  This Dominican writer won the Pulitzer Prize for his footnote-heavy book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.


6. A member of the #NewLatinoBoom, this author was born in Venezuela but has lived in New York for a decade. As a novelist, short story writer, and poet, she has some half a dozen titles to her name to date, including the award-winning The Animal Days (trans. Robin Myers).


7. This Mexican novelist lived all over the world as a child, perhaps contributing to her bilingual approach to literature, where she sometimes acts as her own translator from one language to the other.


8. Once married to the author above in question 7, Alvaro Enrigue is widely considered to be among the finest contemporary Mexican writers. His most notable book in English centers on a 16th century tennis match between Carvaggio and Quevedo.


9. This Chilean writer was known for their cutting critique of the Chilean political class, most notably portrayed in the short novel My Tender Matador.
Pedro Lemebel


10. Taking inspiration from classic and occult horror and gothic literature, the Ecuadorian writer of Jawbone, is among the avant-garde leaders of “Andean Gothic” fiction.


11. The prolificity of this Argentine writer, who has published over 100 books and counting, has led to running jokes that there are more than one of him.


12. A K’iche’ Maya poet, this author of Poems I Brought Down from the Mountain, famously wrote in K’iche’ before translating his own work into Spanish.


13. Named as one of the Bogotá39 in 2017, this Colombian novelist, poet, and short story writer has around half a dozen full-length books to her name, including Amora (translated into English by Julia Sanches), which won her the Jabuti Prize in 2016, along with many other major literary awards.


14. This Brazilian writer grew up in the City of God favela in Rio de Janeiro. He managed to escape the cycle of gang violence and become a successful writer, chronicling his time in the favela in an award-winning novel in 1997, which was adapted to film in 2002.  The novel was translated into English in 2006.


15.  Santiago Roncagliolo gained fame –and an English translation –for his political thriller set at the end of Peru's grim war between Shining Path terrorists and a morally bankrupt government counterinsurgency. Name the novel.


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