You have quite an interesting list in there, and some of them also belong in my collection although I was previously restricting my list to south and central American writers (and you have some Spanish and Portuguese ones there).
I'm curious about Javier Marias (who I did not know) and José Donoso (which I have been meaning to read for a long time). Can you recommend any works from them?
Since they do not appear in your list, I recommend The literary angel by Eduardo Halfon, Hallucinations by Reinaldo Arenas and Tierra del Fuego by Francisco Coloane.
Thank you. Yes I knew you would spot the European authors in that list. My interest extends to Spanish speaking countries as I love the style in which they write. I know about
The Literary Angel and the high praise Halfon has received but I want to wait to see what else he produces first before committing.
Tierra del Fuego I'm familiar with also but as I'm not as keen on "realist" collections as you and have soooo many other Latin American writers to wade through, I'm going to have to put it on hold for now.
Reinaldo Arenas sounds promising as I have very few Cuban writers, so he's going on my list and because it appears that this text has quixotic elements to it if I'm understanding things correctly?
I thank you for those recommendations. Now
Jose Donoso is probably still regarded as Chile's greatest post war novelist up to recent times where perhaps Allende or Bolano have taken over that mantel, at least in the West. His best known work is
Obscene Bird of the Night and what a book that is! This book is equal parts fractured prose, bewildering, weird and sublime (perhaps that should be subliminal?). A quite magnificent near-dreamlike masterpiece that comes highly recommended even if at times it can seem exasperatingly unstructured becasue you
just know there is a real intelligence at work here bubbling beneath the words on the page. Defiinitely not a light nor linear plot if you can even apply that term in this instance but an important novel that should be an automatic inclusion on any Latin American reading list.
Javier Marias I know less of from reading and more by reputation. Having said that, I have dipped into his book
Lost Souls and enjoyed what I have read to date. It came as a recommendation to me by Jayaprakesh and I know that the
Your Face Tomorrow trilogy seems to be universally acknowledged as a masterpeice of not only "Latin Amercian" come Spanish literature but also of European literature in the last 100 plus years.
Pedro Paramo is shaping up quite nicely. It's quite the mesmerising read, a little remniscent in tone to
Dino Buzzati's masterpiece
Tartar Steppe; another novel I can happily recommend to all and sundry.
Cheers.
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