A Dozen Favorite Books of the Latin American Boom
(When it comes to the Boom, the question is who counts? There are the big four, of course: Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, and Mario Vargas Llosa—but who else? For my part, I’ve included only those Latin American writers who published books at the height of the movement, whether or not those books received much contemporaneous acclaim. I’ve also included later books by the same writers, whether or not they were published in the 60s and 70s. I’ve ranked my list in order of preference.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector
Complete Works and Other Stories by Augusto Monterroso
The Centaur in the Garden by Moacyr Scliar
Literature Class by Julio Cortázar
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Collected Stories by Gabriel García Márquez
The Black Sheep and Other Fables by Augusto Monterroso
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sabato
— May 21, 2021