Latin American Boom - Publishing Latin American Boom Novelists

Publishing Latin American Boom Novelists

Publishing played a crucial role in the advent of the Boom. Major publishing houses based in Havana, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Asunción or Santiago were responsible for publishing most of the Boom novels, and these cities became strong centers of cultural innovation.

• Santiago in Chile, is presided over by the criticism of Alone, while the older generation of Benjamín Subercaseaux, Eduardo Barrios, Marta Brunet, and Manuel Rojas were quietly superseded by José Donoso. Other writers, such as Enrique Lafourcade, have a large national readership.
• Cuba is a lively cultural center, first with the group of Orígenes, and then with Lunes de Revolución.
• In Colombia the rural novels of Caballero Calderon were displaced by García Márquez who was followed by Alvarez Gardeazábal.
• Mexico continues a tradition of strong regional writers and diverse schools of writing, from Yáñez to Sainz, with novelists such as Luis Spota or Sergio Fernández, the first a popular, the other a refined, writer, both better known in Mexico than abroad.

It should be noted, however, that this period saw the publishing of Boom novels in Barcelona, reflecting the new interest of Spanish publishing houses in the Spanish American market. However, as Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola notes, the revenue generated by the publishing of these novels gave a boost to the Spanish economy, even as the works were subjected to Franco's censors. Some of the Seix Barral-published novels include Mario Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero (1963) and his Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973), and Manuel Puig's Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1971). A crucial figure "in the promotion of Latin American literature in Spain", (and elsewhere) was the "super-agent" Carmen Balcells, whom Vargas Llosa referred to as "The Big Mama of the Latin American novel."