Students in English wishing to study Latin American literature in translation for their PhD are allowed to write their own reading lists and not required to take coursework. There are problems with this but as an American I find that we should read texts from other countries – as long as we are not simply committing one more act of cultural appropriation.
For students intending to work with me, however, I have decided to make a required list to which they will add in the period or genre of their choosing, but from which they may not subtract. It is to be representative and limited, but deep, and there will be required critical readings as well. Everything must be available in a good translation.
I am starting with Independence. Writing the list is inspiring.
PRIMARY [starting list]
Independence to the Turn of the XX Century
♦Bolívar, Simón. Message to the Congress of Angostura
♦Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo
♦Matto de Turner, Clorinda. Torn From the Nest
♦Martí, José. Our America
♦Darío, Rubén. To Roosevelt
♦Rodó, José Enrique. Ariel
Centuries XX and XXI
♦ Guillén, Nicolás. West Indies, Ltd. OR Huidobro, Altazor OR Vallejo, Spain, Take This Cup from Me OR Neruda, General Song**** [you may ADD another poet from this period if you like, or an additional collection by one of these four poets]
♦Rivera, José Eustasio. The Vortex OR Azuela, The Underdogs OR Andrade, Macunaíma***** OR another novel of this period [you may also ADD a novel if you like]
♦ Guillén, Nicolás. West Indies, Ltd. OR Huidobro, Altazor OR Vallejo, Spain, Take This Cup from Me OR Neruda, General Song**** [you may ADD another poet from this period if you like, or an additional collection by one of these four poets]
♦Carpentier, Alejo. Voyage Back to the Source
♦Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths
♦Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo
♦Morejón, Nancy. Black Woman [you may ADD another contemporary poet if you like]
♦At least one additional novel [see recommended additions, below]
♦At least two plays [see incipient list of recommendations, in comments]
SECONDARY [starting list]
Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions
Silviano Santiago, The Space In Between: Essays on Latin American Culture*****
Julio Ramos, Divergent Modernities
Angel Rama, The Lettered City
Roberto Fernández Retamar, Caliban
Roberto González Echevarría, Celestina’s Brood
Gerald Martin, Journeys Through the Labyrinth: Latin American Fiction in the Twentieth Century
Octavio Paz, The Bow and the Lyre
Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONS [starting list]
José María Arguedas, Deep Rivers
Alejo Carpentier, Explosion in a Cathedral**
Rosario Castellanos, The Nine Guardians
Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch***
Ernesto Cardenal, The Doubtful Strait
Roque Dalton, Clandestine Poems
*Because not everything is “folklore.”
**Because not everything is “magic realism.”
***Because I will not let anyone just read “Las babas del diablo / Blow-Up.”
****Because I will not let you ignore Latin American history.
*****Because I am including Brazil in this list.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PRIMARY LISTS AT OUR SCHOOL DUE TO THE RAMPANT MISCONCEPTIONS WHICH REIGN ABOUT THESE WORKS (I.E., YOU NEED TO READ SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE YOU COME BACK TO THESE TEXTS):
José María Arguedas, Yawar Fiesta*
Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of this World* **
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude**
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Storyteller*
Authors not recommended are Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel. There are many other women novelists. Try Elena Garro, Clarice Lispector, Angeles Mastretta, Elena Poniatowska, Marta Traba, Luisa Valenzuela, etc. [I am not yet sure who has been translated, but when I find out I will improve this list.]
Theorists and essayists not recommended include Nestor García Canclini, because he is not a Chicano, he is an Argentine based in Mexico, and I have not yet been able to convince any students of this – or that there is a difference – or that he is writing in a context.
Also for this exam, José Vasconcelos may not be read in isolation. If you are going to read him, you must also read Fernando Ortiz, Gilberto Freyre, and serveral other writers. (Indeed, it would be possible to do an entire area examination on race in Latin America.)
RECOMMENDED HISTORICAL BACKGROUND [starting list]
Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America
Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World
Tulio Halperín, The Contemporary History of Latin America
Edmundo O’Gorman, The Invention of the Americas
RECOMMENDED ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND MANUALS [starting list]
Roberto González Echevarría (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature
Gerald Martin, Journeys Through the Labyrinth: Latin American Fiction in the Twentieth Century
This list is very short, I know. Even the recommended list is being kept short. You have to start at the beginning. Can we know this much and more? Yes, we can.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
So…hey. Thanks for the reading list!
I don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese, so…good to know what you recommend that’s available in translation. 🙂
O good, K! There’s more, funner stuff, too – this is for academics primarily.
Now I’m reproducing the cross post from my parallel site because the whole thing keeps evolving, and they are developing in a schismatic way. I’ll keep working on it here and then when it’s finished I’ll move it there.
REQUIRED PRIMARY [stating list]. Yes, it has no ‘boom’ novels or ‘post-boom’ ones. It is very canonical and does not include a great many texts by women or racial ‘others.’ It neglects theatre. This is a list to add to.
Bolívar, Simón. Message to the Congress of Angostura
Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo
Matto de Turner, Clorinda. Torn From the Nest
Martí, José. Our America
Darío, Rubén. To Roosevelt
Rodó, José Enrique. Ariel
Azuela, Mariano, MACUNAIMA, M. de Andrade, MACUNAIMA, J.E. Rivera, THE VORTEX, or another novel from this period
Huidobro, Vicente. Altazor
Vallejo, César. Spain, Take This Cup from Me
Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths
Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo
Carpentier, EXPLOSION IN A CATHEDRAL, Castellanos, THE NINE GUARDIANS or Cortázar, HOPSCOTCH, and one other novel from this period
Morejón, Nancy. Black Woman
At least one additional text
REQUIRED SECONDARY [starting list]
Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions
Silviano Santiago, The Space In Between: Essays on Latin American Culture
Julio Ramos, Divergent Modernities
Angel Rama, The Lettered City
Roberto Fernández Retamar, Caliban
Octavio Paz, The Bow and the Lyre
Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas
RECOMMENDED HISTORICAL BACKGROUND [starting list]
Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America
Tulio Halperín, The Contemporary History of Latin America
ADDITIONAL CRITICAL BACKGROUND [starting list]
Andres Bello – Renato Ortiz – Beatriz Sarlo
Roberto Schwarz, Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONS TO THE MAIN READING LIST
Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar
Clarice Lispector
Fantastic–Thanks.
Gracias Chaser! It needs theatre too but I haven’t found that in English yet. Something like, choose two of:
Castellanos, El eterno femenino
Berman, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda
Gambaro, Antigona furiosa
and others. But I have to figure out what is in English.
Or: evil me – I can insist that they prove that they seriously took the language examination by preparing one work in Spanish.
I love this list. No Benítez Rojo? I know Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá often isn’t included on such lists, but he has several works I think are superb. Also, nothing by the Brazilian thinker Roberto Mangabeira Unger? I guess that would be a bit heavy-duty to start off with. One last person who comes to mind is the great Brazilian comparativist Luiz Costa Lima. His work on the control of the imaginary, though dense, is provocative and productive. Several of his books have also appeared in English, I believe. But a great list, I must say. I would love to study with you!
Thank you jstheater and I would love to study with *you*! All the people you mention are *great* but they’re advanced level. I’m thinking of people who have to start from zero and do it all in a semester or a year. But these are fantastic suggestions. Excellent.
I’d substitute Myth and Archive for Celestina’s Brood.
Good point. I haven’t actually read Celestina’s Brood, just ordered it for the purposes of preparing this list, actually. It is supposed to show people what Hispanism is and so on, which I was thinking would be good since the English department appears to believe there are only a few books written in Spanish and they can easily be added to English. But: Myth and Archive, yes.
And also of course, although this isn’t a list on the colonial period: Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance.
Now I have Celestina’s Brood and I’ve got to say it looks good for the general reader although Myth and Archive is best for this list.
Also: this piece of Garganigo’s student anthology is on line and one could just give it to them (although it’s in Spanish – still, short, sweet, basic, useful):
http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfcca/novisimanarrativa1.html
The latest HarperCollins catalogue has in translation, opf things I did not know were translated (and I’m including everything, not just mod LA writers):
Bombal, La ultima niebla
Munoz Molina, El jinete polaco
Paz, La llama doble
posadas, pequenas infamias
Restrepo, la novia oscura
Santos-Febres, Nuestra seniora de la noche
Serrano, Lo que esta en mi corazon
Volpi, En vusca de Klingsor
Prada, El septimo velo
Fuguet, Las peliculas de mi vida
Lindo, Una palabra tuya
Fortes, Quattrocento
Manrique, Nuestras vidas son los rios
Mastretta, Maridos
and more.
And for my one student, Lesley Feracho’s study:
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL3306971M
There is also the J Michael Dash “The Other America,” which is really about French Caribbean things but does try to put Caribbean literature in a world context, etc. I have not read it but I might look at the introduction and see how it is framed, and how it has been reviewed.
“Theorists and essayists not recommended include Nestor García Canclini, because he is not a Chicano, he is an Argentine based in Mexico, and I have not yet been able to convince any students of this – or that there is a difference – or that he is writing in a context.”
– I was never able to convince a professor of mine of this, and that created a big conflict between us. 🙂 For her, there is no worthy theory under the Sun but that of Canclini.
Do you mean that woman at McGill AC? She is not an honest person and should be avoided. So should her friend RdG.