page_title: Latin American literature
section_title: Post-Boom, McOndo, and contemporary literature
hierarchical_section_title: Latin American literature / History / Post-Boom, McOndo, and contemporary literature
caption_attribution_description: Español: Esténcil de Roberto Bolaño en Barcelona en 2012. (Barrio de Sant Antoni)
context_page_description: Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas as well as literature of the United States written in the Spanish language. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th Century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries.
context_section_description: Post-Boom literature is sometimes characterized by a tendency towards irony and humor, as the narrative of Alfredo Bryce Echenique, and towards the use of popular genres, as in the work of Manuel Puig.  Some writers felt the success of the Boom to be a burden, and spiritedly denounced the caricature that reduces Latin American literature to magical realism.  Hence the Chilean Alberto Fuguet came up with McOndo as an antidote to the Macondo-ism that demanded of all aspiring writers that they set their tales in steamy tropical jungles in which the fantastic and the real happily coexisted. In a mock diary by post-modernist Giannina Braschi the Narrator of the Latin American Boom is shot by a Macy's make-up artist who accuses the Boom of capitalizing on her solitude. Other writers, however, have traded on the Boom's success: see for instance Laura Esquivel's pastiche of magical realism in Como agua para chocolate.
  The Spanish language author who has had most impact in United States has been Roberto Bolaño. Overall, contemporary literature in the region is vibrant and varied, ranging from the best-selling Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende to the more avant-garde and critically acclaimed work of writers such as Diamela Eltit, Giannina Braschi, Luisa Valenzuela, Marcos Aguinis, Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Ampuero, Jorge Marchant Lazcano, Alicia Yánez, Jaime Marchán, Jaime Bayly, Fernando Ampuero, Miguel Gutierrez, Edgardo Rivera Martinez, Alonso Cueto, Manfredo Kempff, Edmundo Paz Soldán, Gioconda Belli, Jorge Franco, Daniel Alarcon, Víctor Montoya or Mario Mendoza Zambrano. Other important figures include the Argentine César Aira, the Peruvian-Mexican Mario Bellatin or the Colombian Fernando Vallejo, whose La virgen de los sicarios depicted the violence in Medellín under the influence of the drug trade.
  There has also been considerable attention paid to the genre of testimonio, texts produced in collaboration with subaltern subjects such as Rigoberta Menchú.
  Finally, a new breed of chroniclers is represented by the more journalistic Carlos Monsiváis and Pedro Lemebel, who draw also on the long-standing tradition of essayistic production as well as the precedents of engaged and creative non-fiction represented by the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano and the Mexican Elena Poniatowska, among others.
caption: Roberto Bolaño is considered to have had the greatest United States impact of any post-Boom author
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