Latin American Literature and It's Reader

Note: This posting is actually from an assignment I did for my Latin American Literature class (no plagiarism involved or intended.)  I was so pleased with how this turned out I decided to share with all of you.  Enjoy!!!

 Roberto Bolano's story of “Clara” is a Latin-American romance. It is a story of a man who is infatuated with a very mercurial woman, Clara. It even starts out as a typical, sensuous love story: “She had big breasts, slim legs, and blue eyes. That’s how I like to remember her. I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and at the start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine.” (Bolano, 1) It is the same love story that one has read before: the male in love with a woman he cannot have, and the woman very disturbed in her thoughts and her actions. This would be the type of story any American would love to read because of the plot itself.

When reading the article, “What Defines Latino Literature?”, I had trouble finding why or why not this particular story would be Latino literature in definition to the article. The author of the article describes Latin-American literature as a means for writers to express “what it means to be Latino in the United States” (Schama, 2010). However, the story does not take place in the United States—the setting is in Barcelona. Along with that the characters do not set foot inside the United States—only within other cities of Spain or going to another country like Moracco. Along with that, the author is a Chilean author who died in Barcelona, never setting foot on American soil (Flanagan). So, what makes this story of “Clara” a Latin-American story rather than a Latino story?

Perhaps what makes this a Latin-American story is that this is a story and an author Latinos and Latin-Americans can understand about the Latino experience. Like Clara, Bolano was no academic because of his dyslexia, and therefore was a college dropout. His family “led a nomadic existence from an early age” moving from area to area as he was growing up. The narrator of the story also leads a nomadic existence in a way, going from one city to another, though it is not clear why the narrator does so. Latin-American families who need to work in order to survive will migrate from city to city, or country to country, looking for work and shelter. When I was growing up, my father had told me his story of how he and his brothers and sisters moved from New Mexico to California after his mother died to go live with his aunt and uncle and various cousins. In the 1950's, New Mexico had suffered a drought and therefore both families had to move to California where farming was more prosperous and fruitful, plus the children had a chance of a better life.

Bolano's writing focuses “largely with the purpose of literature and its relationship to life” (Flanagan). Bolano uses the experience of Latinos and Latin-Americans to create his style of writing so readers, Latin-American or not, can understand and relate to his writing. As a Spanish-American, though I know nothing about migration or growing up Hispanic in the Bay Area, I can relate to Bolano's story because it is a story of unrequited love—a theme common in many areas of literature and media. How many times as a teen or a young adult have we fallen in love with someone from afar, never knowing if they may love us back? Or realizing that the love we feel for them is only one-sided? Any American or Spaniard or Frenchman, or anybody in the world , can understand the loss of an unknown unrequited love on another person. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Edith Wharton, Isabel Allende, even Jhumpa Lahiri, have written about attraction over the unattainable love interest. It is not a theme that was invented with Latino or Latin-American literature, but a theme that has been written in many forms over the centuries. Even I could tell you stories from my own personal experience as a teenager and as a young woman.

What defines a piece of writing as Latin-American literature? Besides the author that wrote it, it must be a piece that Latin-Americans can relate to, like history or experience. How would it seem if the author wrote about a Russian terrorist that was completely fictional? The reader would be confused as possibly many Latin-Americans have not seen Russia or experienced a Russian terrorist. It would still be by a Latino author but it would not be about a Latin-America experience, therefore the reader would not be able to relate to the work as Latin-American literature. That is the key to creating a good Latin-American story or novel—it must be something the reader can relate to and understand from experience or understanding.

Works Cited

Bolano, Roberto. “Clara”. Diablo Valley College. Class Handout. Print.

“Roberto Bolano”. About.com. Flanagan, Mark. About.com Comtemporary Literature. Web. n.d.

“What Defines Latino Literature?”. Smithsonian.com. Schama, Chloe. Smithsonian. Web. 2 Dec 2010.