Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Arts
Literature
Costa Rica has a relatively young literary history and few works of Costa Rican writers or
novelists are available in translation. Carlos Luis Fallas (1909-66) is widely known for
Mamita Yunai
(1940), an influential novel that took the banana companies to task for their
labor practices, and he remains very popular among the Latin American left.
Carmen Naranjo (1928-2012) is one of the few contemporary Costa Rican writers who
have risen to international acclaim. She was a novelist, poet and short-story writer who
also served as ambassador to India in the 1970s, and a few years later as minister of cul-
ture. In 1996 she was awarded the prestigious Gabriela Mistral medal by the Chilean gov-
ernment. Her collection of short stories,
There Never Was a Once Upon a Time,
is widely
available in English. Two of her stories can also be found in
Costa Rica: A Traveler's Lit-
erary Companion.
José León Sánchez (1930-) is an internationally renowned memoirist of Huetar descent
from the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. After being convicted for stealing from the
famous Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles in Cartago, he was sentenced to serve
his term at Isla San Lucas, one of Latin America's most notorious jails. Illiterate when he
was incarcerated, Sánchez taught himself how to read and write, and clandestinely au-
thored one of the continent's most poignant books:
La isla de los hombres solos
(called
God Was Looking the Other Way
in the translated version).
Although he is yet untranslated, poet Alfonso Chase is a Fulbright scholar and a contem-
porary literary hero. In 2000 he won the nation's highest literary award, the Premio
Magón.
Music & Dance
Although there are other Latin American musical hotbeds of more renown, Costa Rica's
central geographical location and colonial history have resulted in a varied musical culture
that incorporates elements from North and South America and the Caribbean islands.
