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Articles from SPLALit - Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American L

Cautiva directed by Gastón Biraben 2007-10-26 19:09:00 Boyd Williamson reviews Cautiva directed by Gastón Biraben. Quietly angry and subtly polemical, Cautiva addresses Argentina’s long period of willful amnesia following military rule from 1976 to 1983 and the “disappearance” of thousands of student activists, union members, and other dissidents. First-time director Gastón Biraben creates a poignant allegory of this historical-political amnesia and ...

The Complete Poetry - César Vallejo 2007-10-26 19:03:00 John Timpane reviews César Vallejo's Complete Poetry. What a year was 1922. That year, T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” was published. So was James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” So was Jean Toomer’s “Cane.” Whatever “modernism” means, 1922 was one of its peaks. Also that year, a poet from Peru published a book called “Trilce”—to complete silence at home and abroad. Too different, a departure too far. ...

Elite Squad directed by Jose Padilha 2007-10-22 10:21:00 A Washington Post article on the latest sensation of Brazilian cinema. After taking a phone call last week, director José Padilha stepped onto the patio of his studio and told a business partner that the intense discussion provoked by his latest film had spread to yet another sphere of Brazilian society. "Now they're going to speak about it in Congress," Padilha said, looking at his watch. "In ...

The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa 2007-10-17 11:58:00 Chloë Schama reviews Mario Vargas Llosa's "The Bad Girl". Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel, "The Bad Girl" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 276 pages, $25) is a joyful romp through a torturous relationship. The novel traces the obsession of its narrator, Ricardo Somocurcio, from the inception of the affair in Peru to its last spasm in Spain, alighting in a Paris roiling with student ferment, a London ...

Love in the Time of Cholera - Trailer 2007-10-17 11:54:00 New Line Cinema is bringing Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez' best-selling novel "Love in the Time of Cholera" to the big screen with Ronald Harwood ("The Pianist") writing the screenplay, and Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "Four Weddings and a Funeral") directing. The cast includes Javier Bardem, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Benjamin Bratt, John Leguizamo, Giovanna ...

Enrique Vila-Matas - Interview 2007-10-16 12:01:00 La escritura siempre parte de algo que falta. Y a veces lo que falta es el libro mismo. An interview with Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas. Please visit SPLALit aStore Spanish Literature ...

Havana Noir 2007-10-16 11:53:00 Carlos Rodríguez Martorell reviews "Havana Noir". Novelist Achy Obejas has turned her native Havana into a crime scene — without shedding a drop of blood. In "Havana Noir" (Akashic Books, $15.95), the author of "Days of Awe" has gathered 17 Cuban authors to write short crime stories set in the Caribbean island's capital. The just-released compilation is part of Akashic's series of noir genre ...

Malta con Huevo directed by Cristóbal Valderrama 2007-10-16 11:43:00 Rob Bartlett reviews Cristóbal Valderrama's Malta con Huevo. Imagine a hot Santiago day. The smog is cloying, stifling. Lethargy washes over you with every warm breath of wind. Your throat is parched. You need refreshment, an energy boost, a pick-me-up. You need Malta con Huevo. This is how you get it: take 1 liter of cold Malta beer, 1 or 2 eggs and sugar to taste. Blend. Drink. It is October ...

Planeta Prize - 2007 2007-10-16 11:31:00 Spanish Juan Jose Millas was awarded the 56th edition of the Planeta Prize for best Spanish-language novel for his work "El mundo" (The World). The prize panel was made up of Alberto Blecua, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Soledad Puertolas, Rosa Regas and Carlos Pujol. The 56th edition of the Planeta Prize was presented at the Convention Palace of Catalonia, with ...

Purity of Blood by Arturo Perez-Reverte 2007-10-15 14:56:00 Peggy Barnett reviews Arturo Perez-Reverte's Purity of Blood Arturo Perez-Reverte writes historical novels set in his homeland of Spain. This one, Purity of Blood, is the second in a series he is writing about characters in the early 17th century. (The Mary Willis Library also has the first book in the series, Captain Alatriste, if readers prefer to begin at the beginning.) The narrator is Inigo ...

Interview with Junot Diaz 2007-10-15 14:32:00 Carlos Rodríguez Martorell interviews Dominican author Junot Díaz. Junot Díaz is savoring the raving success of his debut novel — briefly. "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" has made it to the New York Times Best Sellers list (a first for a Dominican author), Miramax Films bought the screen rights and a translation into Spanish is already in the works. "This is just a temporary change after ...

Interview with Alberto Manguel 2007-10-15 14:05:00 Mary Jo Anderson interviews Chilean autor Alberto Manguel. Alberto Manguel is a master of words and he doesn’t mince any of them. How fitting that language is the subject of his newest book, The City of Words (Anansi, $18.95), comprising the 2007 Massey Lectures which Manguel will be delivering across Canada over the next few weeks. "We are being infantilized daily. I believe we come into the ...

The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa 2007-10-15 09:49:00 Kathryn Harrison reviews Mario Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl. Once upon a time, in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, there was a good boy who fell in love with a bad girl. He treated her with tenderness; she repaid him with cruelty. The bad girl mocked the good boy’s devotion, criticized his lack of ambition, exploited his generosity when it was useful to her and abandoned him when it was not. No ...

Interview with Junot Diaz 2007-10-15 04:12:00 Carlos Fresneda interviews Junot Díaz. "¡Diablo, este idioma es difícil!"... Seis años tenía Junot Díaz (Santo Domingo, 1968) cuando dio con sus huesos en Nueva Jersey, sin hablar "ni papa de inglés" y bregando con los molinos de viento de una cultura ajena: "Este país se nutre del silencio de los inmigrantes para mantener su imagen idílica...". Sufrimiento, incomprensión, trabajo duro. Así se ...

The Insufferable Gaucho by Roberto Bolaño 2007-10-09 05:34:00 Roberto Bolaño's The Insufferable Gaucho in the New Yorker. In the opinion of those who knew him well, Héctor Pereda had two outstanding virtues: he was a caring and affectionate father and an irreproachable lawyer with a record of honesty, in a time and place that were hardly conducive to such rectitude. As evidence of the first virtue, his son and daughter, Bebe and Cuca, whose childhood and ...