A couple lists.

Slow day today. Like to start something here again. The idea is a list of 10 well known South American books or authors and then another list of 10 not so well known books or authors from the region that I think are worth taking a stab at.

10 Well known

1. Conversation in the Cathedral--Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)--a masterpiece.
2. The Savage Detectives--Roberto Bolano (Chile)--just out this year in translation. A must have.
3. The Kingdom of this World--Alejo Carpentier (Cuba)
4. Ficciones--Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina)
5. Strange Pilgrims--Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)--my favorite of his works.
6. Three trapped tigers--Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba)
7. A brief life--Juan Carlos Onetti (Uruguay)
8. All fires the fire--Julio Cortazar (Argentina)
9. The burning plain--Juan Rulfo (Mexico)
10. On heroes and tombs--Ernesto Sabato (Argentina)
10(a). The Tango singer--Tomas Eloy Martinez (Argentina)--it's okay to cheat a little.

10 not so well known.

1. Artificial Respiration--Ricardo Piglia (Argentina)
2. The seven madmen--Roberto Arlt (Argentina)
3. The book of lamentations--Rosario Castellanos (Mexico)
4. Dirty Havana Trilogy--Pedro Juan Gutierrez (Cuba)
5. The Duke--Enrique Medina (Argentina)
6. Five Black Ships--Napoleon Baccino Ponce de Leon (Uruguay)
7. Blood Relations--Carlos Montemayor (Mexico)
8. The adventures and misadventures of Maqroll--Alvaro Mutis (Colombia)
9. The good cripple--Rodrigo Rey Rosa (Guatemala)
10. Sultry Moon--Mempo Giardinelli (Argentina)
10 (a). El Infierno--Carlos Martinez Moreno (Uruguay).
10 (b). Four hands--Paco Ignacio Taibo (Mexico).

Larry- thanks for the list...it'll take me some time to develop my own...I have an interest in hearing more about Mempo Giardinelli.

Larry: I was suprised not to see Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo in your list as I've heard it is one of the classics of Latin American Literature. Unless you are meaning "South American" literature quite literally? Then I noticed that it looked like you included Juan Rulfo but when I clicked on The Burning Plain it came up with Michael Nava as the author. I gave my daughter a copy of Pedro Paramo in the original spanish as she is a Spanish minor in college right now but I have not gotten a "review" from her yet.

Thanks for the list. I'll be using it as a guide since I am just getting into Latin American literature courtesy of Garcia Marquez, Vargas llosa, and Bolano.

Bert--Giardinelli is an Argentine who has been translated twice. His other translated book is The tenth circle. In some ways he reminds me of Arlt--in others of the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz who by the way was stranded in Argentina throughout World War II and for a fairly extensive time afterwards. Gombrowicz's novel Trans-Atlantyk is a somewhat comic rendering of his being stranded.

jveezer--one of the things I tried to do here is not mention a writer or his works more than once. Rulfo's Pedro Paramo is without a doubt his signature work--it's just that I prefer his short story collection. I'm probably in the minority on that and unfortunately I didn't check it against the list running alongside but The burning plain and other stories certainly exists thought it doesn't seem to appear when I put it in brackets. Maybe by checking through the authors works it will come up. I know I have it in my catalog. Anyway I have a daughter who will be a junior in high school next year and her favorite subject is Spanish which she has taken for the past 3 years and I'm hoping she will continue to take courses throughout college.

jveezer--it shows up in the catalog as El llano en llamas. In my catalog though there is a cover of The burning plain which is the English translation by George Schade. Mine is a University of Texas Press edition--a somewhat different cover than the one I show--ISBN 0292701322. It is a very good book but it's been a few years since I've read it.

A tainted degustation:

Juan Rulfo: Pedro Paramo - a semi-surrealist novel of the soul of Mexico. Carlos Fuentes regards it as the the most significant novel in the Spanish language, after the Quixote.

Virgilio Pinera: Cold Tales: Cuba

Clemente Palma: Malignant Tales: Peru

Horacio Quiroga: The Decapitated Chicken: Uruguay

Leopoldo Lugones: Strange Forces: Argentina

Oswaldo de Andrade: Seraphim Grosse Pointe: Brazil

Mario de Andrade: Hallucinated City: Brazil

Jose Asuncion Silva: After-Dinner Conversation: The Diary of a Decadent: Columbia

Xavier Villaurrutia: Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire: Mexico

Ruben Dario: Selected Writings: Nicaragua

Hi all --

I would also add some of Francisco Coloane's works -- my preference goes to his collected short stories like Cabo de Hornos and Tierra Del Fuego (I own both in their French translation).

Am currently going through Naufragios (touchstone not working apparently, called "Naufrages" in French) and I have to say it goes straight into my best shelf with Gilles Lapouge's great volume on pirates (Les Pirates) and pushes me to read more on the Spanish period of Latam as well as on Magellan and especially Francis Drake.

Re-Cortazar I think "Alguien anda por ahi" (crap touchstone system!!! Façons de perdre in French) is by far superior to All fires the fire. Now that is a controversy...

I've thought about buying Cape Horn in the past--Kamakura. I still like All fires the fire best though. Sorry. In any case if you like sea stories Alvaro Mutis is great as is Five Black ships--both mentioned above.

Keeping the emphasis on the Southern Cone, just a couple of additional titles I would include on my "top ten" list:-

La pesquisa by Juan Jose Saer (Argentina). An extremely well crafted short novel by a real master - certainly one of the top ten novels I've ever read. It has recently been translated into English.

El beso de la mujer araña by Manuel Puig (Argentina). A classic.

La tregua by Mario Benedetti (Uruguay). Ditto.

Moving northward, I would have to add...

La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña by Alfredo Bryce Echenique (Perú). I'm not sure this hilarious novel is available in English, but it would lose a fair bit in translation anyway.

Several of the novels of Mario Vargas Llosa (Perú), especially - for me - La historia de Mayta and El hablador.

Almost anything by Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), particularly the short stories and Crónica de una muerte anunciada.

Mal de amores by Angeles Mastretta (Mexico).

Venezuelan authors are not widely read but, amongst the least well-known outside, Miguel Otero Silva is outstanding. He does not seem to have been translated into English - yet. La muerte de Honorio or Casas muertas are a good starting point.

(I keep editing this to get the touchstones to register, but this is the best I can do)