page_title: Infrarealism
section_title: The following years
hierarchical_section_title: Infrarealism / The following years
caption_attribution_description: Español: Esténcil de Roberto Bolaño en Barcelona en 2012. (Barrio de Sant Antoni)
context_page_description: Infrarealism Spanish: Infrarrealismo is a poetic movement founded in Mexico City in 1975 by a group of twenty young poets, including Roberto Bolaño, Mario Santiago Papasquiaro, José Vicente Anaya, Rubén Medina and José Rosas Ribeyro.
  The Infrarealists, also known as “infras”, took for their motto a phrase from the Chilean painter Roberto Matta: “Blow the brains out of the cultural establishment”. Rather than a defined style, the movement was characterised by the pursuit of a free and personal poetry, representative of its members’ attitude towards life on the fringes of conventional society, in a similar manner to the Beat Generation of the 1950s.
  The origin of the phrase is French. The intellectual Emmanuel Berl attributes it to one of the founders of Surrealism, the writer and political activist Philippe Soupault, who was also one of the driving forces behind Dadaism. According to Bolaño, however, the name was originally coined in the 1940s by Roberto Matta, after André Breton expelled him from the Surrealists. Cast out, Matta became an “Infrarealist”, and the only one up until the term's rebirth as a literary movement.
context_section_description: Various other Infrarealists decided to leave Mexico City in the years following the departure of Bolaño, Papasquiaro and Montané. Only some continued with literary careers, although the majority dedicated themselves to artistic activities. Rubén Medina went to study literature in the United States; Harrington returned to Chile to study film; Gelles Lebrija went to live in Tijuana; Piel Divina to Paris; the Méndez brothers returned to their hometown Morelia, where they worked in journalism, and for a time as bakers; José Vicente Anaya dedicated himself to travelling around Mexico for four years; Lorena de la Rocha chose classical music composition and theatre; and the Larrosa sisters stayed in Mexico City, with Vera devoting herself to dance and theatre, and Mara to painting.
  Though the first phase of the movement ended with Bolaño and Papasquario’s departure to Europe in 1977, when Papasquario returned to Mexico City in 1979 he began to meet up with both old friends and new Infrarealists. Between April 1980 and February 1981, poems from this new group of Infraealists appeared in three issues of Le Prosa magazine, edited by Orlando Guillén. The sabotages also continued through the 80s, with Octavio Paz the victim of one in January 1980 at an event called the “Meeting of Generations” in the UNAM bookshop.
  Between November 1984 and July 1990, the Infrarealists published a poetry pamphlet titled Calandria de tolvaneras, which also included poems from older members like Roberto Bolaño and Bruno Montané. Between March 1992 and January 1993, various Infrarealists were published in several issues of Zonaeropuerto magazine, which was also edited by Orlando Guillén. In March 1992 they published the magazine La zorra vuelve al gallinero, with two further issues in 2000 and 2002. The later issues, however, were without Papasquairo, who died in 1998. A decade after his death, Mario Raúl Guzman and Rebeca López, Papasquario’s widow, published Jeta de santo. Antología poética 1974-1977, which compiled 161 of Papasquario’s poems.
  Bolaño undoubtedly achieved the greatest international prestige out of the older Infrarealists, establishing himself as a novelist in Barcelona and publishing numerous works for Editorial Anagrama. The standout successes of these publications were The Savage Detectives, a novel which won Spain’s Premio Herralde and was directly inspired by his life with the Infrarealists in Mexico City; and 2666, which won awards in Spain, Chile and the United States and was also set in Mexico.
caption: Graffiti stencil of Roberto Bolaño in Barcelona, 2012.
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