Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Literature & Cinema
Perhaps because of its history of authoritarian rule, Argentina has deve-
loped a strong literary heritage, with many contemporary writers using the
country's darkest moments as inspiration for their complex and sometimes
disturbing novels. Argentina also has a vibrant, evolving film industry. The
country has won two Oscars for best foreign-language film (in 1985 and
2009) - the only Latin American country ever to have won the award - and
continues to produce excellent directors and movies.
Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979) was a famous writer, publisher and intellectual who foun-
ded
Sur,
a renowned cultural magazine of the 1930s. You can also visit her mansion near
Buenos Aires.
Literature
Journalist, poet and politician José Hernández (1831-86) gave rise to the
gauchesco
liter-
ary tradition with his epic poem
Martín Fierro
(1872), which acknowledged the role of
the gauchos in Argentina's development. Argentine writing only reached an international
audience during the 1960s and ̓70s, when the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar,
Ernesto Sábato, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, among many others, were
widely translated for the first time.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), the brightest light of Argentine literature, is best
known for the complex labyrinthine worlds and sophisticated mind teasers constructing
his stories. His early stories, such as
Death and the Compass
and
Streetcorner Man,
offer
a metaphysical twist on Argentine themes, while his later works - including
The Lottery in
Babylon, The Circular Ruins
and
Garden of the Forking Paths
- are works of fantasy.
Collected Fictions
(1999) is a complete set of his stories.
Despite being discovered and influenced by Borges in the 1940s, the writing of Julio
Cortázar (1914-84) was considerably different. His short stories and novels are more an-
thropological and concern people living seemingly normal lives in a world where the sur-
real becomes commonplace. Cortázar's most famous book is
Hopscotch
.
Another great writer is Ernesto Sábato (1911-2011), whose complex and uncomprom-
ising novels have been extremely influential on later Argentine literature.
The Tunnel
(1948) is Sábato's engrossing existentialist novella about an obsessed painter and his dis-
torted personal take on reality.
