Chilean Literature - Twenty-first Century

Twenty-first Century

Roberto Bolaño is considered Chile's last great writer. His posthumous work 2666 is the culmination of his literary style. Nevertheless, there are many other writers who deserve a mention for their contribution to Chilean literature. The police novels of Roberto Ampuero, with the Cuban detective Cayetano Brulé as protagonista, are well-known. Another noted novelist is Jorge Marchant Lazcano, whose works combine history and customs. Alberto Fuguet has contributed to the internationalization of Chilean fiction with works like Mala Onda and Tinta Roja. Sebastián Edwards is known for his best-selling spy thriller El misterio de las Tanias. Hernán Rivera Letelier writes about northern Chile and the lives of miners. Marcela Serrano writes works with a feminist slant that sometimes involve the police, as in Nuestra señora de la Soledad. Novelist Isabel Allende is also well-regarded internationally. Her books sell well in United States and Europe and have been translated into several languages including English. The fiction of Diamela Eltit breaks the traditional novel patterns and is characterized by marginal characters submerged in a seedy world. The new generation of Chilean fiction writers also includes Roberto Ampuero, Marcela Serrano, Hernán Rivera Letelier, Pablo Azócar, Pía Barros, Jorge Calvo, Gregory Cohen, Jaime Collyer, Gonzalo Contreras, Marco Antonio de la Parra, Ana María del Río, Ramón Díaz Eterovic, Lilian Elphick, Martín Faunes, Arturo Marchant, Diego Muñoz Valenzuela, Darío Oses, Antonio Ostornol, Alejandra Rojas, Luis Sepúlveda, and José Leandro Urbina. Young Chilean writers (born in the 1960s) include Alejandra Costamagna, Nona Fernández, Andrea Jeftanovic, Alvaro Bisama, and Roberto Brodsky.

Major poets include Óscar Hahn, Raúl Zurita, Teresa Calderón, Andrés Morales, Omar Lara, Waldo Rojas, Juan Luis Martínez, Sergio Badilla Castillo, Juan Cameron, and Malú Urriola. Other important poets come from the Quercipinión group, which has contributed to the renewal of poetry in the south of Chile. Gonzalo Osses Vilches and Santiago Azar y Damsi Figueroa are some of the freshest and most interesting voices in Chilean literature. Poets Germán Carrasco and Javier Bello are known for their visual and linguistic power. In recent years Chilean poetry has gained new vigor thanks to the emergence of a large number of poets who stand out in their powerful language and their avant-garde aesthetic that incorporates elements from pop music, film, visual arts, and philosophy. These poets include Héctor Hernández Montecinos, Camilo Brodsky, Diego Ramírez, Marcela Saldaño, Marcelo Guajardo Thomas, Carlos Henrickson, Paula Ilabaca, Marcela Parra, Pablo Paredes, Felipe Ruiz, and Galo Ghigliotto.