Viagem (Voyage) is the title of the major collection of poetic works by Cecília Benavides de Carvalho Meireles up to 1939, which includes a poem by the same name. The volume won an award from the Brazilian Academy of Letters… Read More ›
Latin American Literature
Analysis of Pablo Neruda’s The United Fruit Company
The United Fruit Company (1950) by Pablo Neruda is part of section five of Canto General, “The Sand Betrayed,” and was inspired by Pablo Neruda’s visit to Colombia in September 1943. At the time, the Colombian government was embroiled in… Read More ›
Analysis of Jorge de Lima’s That Black Girl Fulô
One of the major aspirations of Brazilian modernist and regionalistic writers during the 1920s was to affirm Brazilian identity through focusing on the Brazilian northeast and its culture and history. Jorge de Lima was one of the main exponents of… Read More ›
Analysis of Jorge Luis Borges’s A Soldier of Urbina
“A Soldier of Urbina,” from El otro, el mismo (The Self and the Other, 1946), is typical of Borges’s mature poetry. Classical in structure and containing both historical and literary allusions, it is also an outstanding example of Borgesian metaphysics…. Read More ›
Analysis of Pablo Neruda’s Sexual Water
Among many cultures, the powers of seduction and destruction are sides of the same coin. In Sexual Water, from the second volume of Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth), Pablo Neruda imbues the force of water with an erotic,… Read More ›
The Poetry of Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda loved the rural, claiming that his poetry “gathers up earth and rain and fruit.” Yet he also loved the energy of cities, the music of busy marketplaces. He was loyal to his people of Chile even as their… Read More ›
Analysis of César Vallejo’s A Man Walks by with a Loaf of Bread on His Shoulder
At a time when the arts in European capitals tended toward “art for art’s sake,” not realism or social concern, César Vallejo delineated the paradox of conscientious intellectuals whose life of the mind involves metaphysical concerns, while their daily lives… Read More ›
Analysis of Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s Looking for Poetry
In Looking for Poetry, from A rosa do povo (Rose of the People, 1945), Carlos Drummond de Andrade investigates the writing process through a succession of negations. As the title suggests, patience and the ability to respect poetry’s caprices are… Read More ›
Analysis of José Emilio Pacheco’s A Linear Equation with This Single Unknown Quantity
This poem from José Emilio Pacheco’s volume Los trabajos del mar (The Labors of the Sea, 1978–83) describes urban pollution. Mexico City has only one river that has not been turned into a sewer and covered by concrete. That river,… Read More ›
Analysis of Juana de Ibarbourou’s Life-Hook
“Life-Hook” (“Vida-garfio”), called “Clinging to Life” in another translation, from Juana de Ibarbourou’s first poetry collection, Las lenguas de diamante (1919), shows themes and modes of expression that recur in her popular early work. The playful, almost flirtatious attitude of… Read More ›
Analysis of João Cabral de Melo Neto’s Culling Beans
The poem Catar feijão (Culling Beans) from Educação pela Pedra (Education by Stone, 1966) is one of João Cabral de Melo Neto’s various poems that explore the process of writing. Dedicated to the Portuguese poet Alexandre O’Neill, this poem reaffirms… Read More ›
Analysis of Raul Bopp’s Black Snake
Cobra Norato, written in 1928 and first published in 1931, is considered not only Raul Bopp’s masterpiece, but also one of the most important literary works of Brazilian modernism. In this long poem, Bopp develops a dramatic epic with fairy-tale–like… Read More ›
Analysis of Pablo Neruda’s Amor America
Neruda begins all of Canto General with “Amor America (1400),” in the opening section titled A Lamp of Earth. The significance of the year 1400 is that it marks a time before the arrival of Christopher Columbus or any other… Read More ›
Analysis of Euclides da Cunha’s Rebellion in the Backlands
One of the most significant cultural currents in the mid- to late 19th century was an increasing interest in defining national characteristics as part of the development of nationalism. In the Czech lands this activity took the form of a… Read More ›
Analysis of Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales’s The President
The most popular novel by Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales (1899–1974), The President is a classic of Latin American literature. The novel examines the political phenomenon of dictatorship by exploring the ways in which authoritarian regimes oppress subjects… Read More ›
Analysis of Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows
Originally published in Spain as De amor y de sombra in 1984, Of Love and Shadows continues the interest of Isabel Allende (1942– ) in both transcendent romantic love and devastating social oppression. The first of her novels written after… Read More ›
Analysis of José Donoso’s The Obscene Bird of the Night
The fourth novel by Chilean writer José Donoso (1924–96), The Obscene Bird of the Night, is widely regarded as his masterpiece. His other significant novels include Coronation (Coronación, 1957), This Sunday (Este Domingo, 1966), The Space without Limits (El lugar… Read More ›
Analysis of Julio Cortázar’s A Manual for Manuel
A Manual for Manuel has the distinction of being the most overtly political novel by Argentine author Julio Cortázar (1914–84); it would also be his last novel published in his lifetime. The book is Cortázar’s attempt, as he explains in… Read More ›
Analysis of Darcy Ribeiro’s Maíra
Maíra was the first novel by the Brazilian intellectual Darcy Ribeiro (1922–97), followed by three significant works: Mule (O mulo, 1981), Savage Utopia (Utopia Selvagem, 1982), and My-Self (Migo, 1988). Maíra was translated into English in 1984. Although Ribeiro was… Read More ›
Analysis of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate
Mexican writer Laura Esquivel (1950– ) wrote Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies as an extraordinary tale of the unique relationship between the magic of love and the sensuality of food…. Read More ›
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