Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Arts
Literature
Puerto Rico was without a printing press until 1807, and Spain's restrictive rule kept literacy
rates low for almost 400 years. But indigenous literature developed nonetheless; the 19th
century gave rise to writers who penned the island's identity: Alejandro Tapia y Rivera,
Manuel Alonso, Dr Enrique Laguerre and Julia de Burgos.
ICONS OF PUERTO RICAN LITERATURE
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Alejandro Tapia y Rivera
(1826-82) The 'Father of Puerto Rican literature' wrote
poems, stories, essays, novels and plays. Long, allegorical poems include
Sataniada,
'A Grandiose Epic Dedicated to the Prince of Darkness.'
»
ManuelAlonso
(1822-89) He wrote
El gíbaro
(1849), a collection of vignettes about
cockfights, dancing, weddings, politics, race and
espiritismo
(spiritualism) that charac-
terize the island
jíbaro
(an archetypal witty peasant).
»
JuliadeBurgos
(1914-53) A major female poet, she responded in outrage when the
island became US territory. Her work embodies two fundamental elements of Boricua
identity: intense, lyrical connection to nature and fiery politics.
»
Dr Enrique Laguerre
(1906-2005) Puerto Rico's first important international nov-
elist. Published in 1935,
La llamarada
(Blaze of Fire) is set on a sugarcane plantation,
where a young intellectual struggles with US corporate exploitation.
As more islanders migrated to the US in the 1950s, Puerto Rican 'exiles,' known as Nuy-
oricans, produced powerful fiction. One of the most successful writers was Pedro Juan Soto,
whose 1956 collection
Spiks
(a racial slur aimed at Nuyoricans) depicts life in the New York
barrios with biting realism. Luis Piñero, Miguel Algarín and Pedro Pietri started a Latino
beatnik movement on Manhattan's Lower East Side at the first Nuyorican Café.
The 1993 movie
Carlito's Way,
starring Al Pacino and Sean Penn, follows the exploits of Carlito Brigante, a Puerto Rican drug
dealer in New York who struggles to go straight after his release from prison.
More recently, Esmeralda Santiago's 1986 memoir,
Cuando era puertorriqueña
(When I
Was Puerto Rican), became a standard in US schools, and cutting edge literary figures from
