The Boom Fades

Why do Latin American writings fascinate? Latin American culture is not merely characterized by receiving but also critiquing, revising and synthesizing Western culture. It can be regarded as universalist and cosmopolitan precisely because it is not merely or mainly Western but Native, American, African and Asian as well

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The Latin American Boom, a literary phenomenon that consisted of the Latin American narrative, spread throughout the world. With the Boom, the independent and relatively young and independent Latin American authors became global literary icons. The magical realism thus became the style of writing which depicted turbulent reality immersed in fanciful overtones.

The Boom inspired many writers to explore themes of revolution, social justice, and political oppression in their works. It coincided with the rise of left-wing politics in the region, and many of its writers were sympathetic to socialist and Marxist ideologies.

With the death of Peru's celebrated writer Mario Vargas Llosa, the Boom has finally faded. He was the last of Latin America's literary golden generation. He leaves behind a legacy that will resonate for generations.

The other Boom writers were Julio Cortázar of Argentina, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, Guillermo Cabrera of Cuba, Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia and José Donoso of Chile. The world got to know the region through the way Boom writers explained political, economic and social events. The Boom cast a surrealist influence on everyone from Salman Rushdie to Toni Morrison, whose novel Beloved bore the echoes of Márquez's haunted relationship with ghosts and memories.

Writers like García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa flirted with Fidel Castro's revolution, so did French philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. In the early 1960s Sartre and de Beauvoir visited Cuba, traveled across the country with Fidel Castro and fully endorsed the revolution and later published his Cuba reports in France-Soir.