Women Writers

The most significant literary development in the last 20 years of the 20th century was the emergence of a host of recognized women writers, mostly novelists. Chilean Isabel Allende found a niche, particularly in Europe, and her La casa de los espíritus (1982; The House of Spirits) was widely acclaimed, though it closely resembles García Márquez's Cien años de soledad in the magical world it describes and even in the sound of the prose. Argentine Luisa Valenzuela had some success, though more abroad than at home, with the exception of her Novela negra con argentinos (1990; Black Novel with Argentines). Chilean Diamela Eltit found a following mostly among academic critics for her highly experimental fiction. Her most discussed novel is Lumpérica (1983; E. Luminata); it is a text laden with stylistic games and a vague plot. With Puerto Ricans Ana Lydia Vega and Rosario Ferré, Eltit became part of an established group of women Latin American writers who were quickly accepted into the Latin American canon.

Younger women novelists such as Cubans Mayra Montero (settled in Puerto Rico), Daína Chaviano (settled in Miami), and Zoé Valdés (settled in France) and Mexican Angeles Mastretta outstripped their predecessors in originality and independence. In fact, at the turn of the 21st century, Cuban women writers in exile were highly popular in Latin America, Spain, and other parts of Europe. Chaviano won an important award in Spain. Montero, Valdés, and Chaviano shared a common preference for sexual themes as such (as opposed to "gender issues"). They dealt with sexuality without guilt or reticence (while straightforwardly denouncing the many sexual biases remaining in Cuba and elsewhere). In fact, were it not for the humour and irony invested in their works, Montero and Valdés might be viewed as pornographers, presenting heterosexual feminine desires, fantasies, and practices in a fashion previously limited to male authors. La última noche que pasé contigo (1991; The Last Night I Spent with You) is Montero's best-known novel. Its hilarious plot involves couples who meet during a Caribbean cruise. Chaviano's El hombre la hembra y el hambre (1998; "Man, Woman, and Hunger") is about a young woman in contemporary Cuba who works as a prostitute to support herself. She lives a double life whose parallel tracks converge in a surprise ending. Mastretta's very successful Arráncame la vida (1985; Mexican Bolero) ironically revisits the most hallowed theme of 20th-century Mexican fiction: the Revolution. But Mastretta portrays revolutionary Mexico from a woman's perspective, which gives the whole process a subtly ironic twist that sometimes turns into outright humour. Montero's and Mastretta's titles are drawn from popular songs, not just to follow the trend started by others such as Sarduy, Barnet, and Puig but to mock the melodramatic, teary tone of Latin American romantic music, always about men's woes in their relationships with women. Though none of these works is of the literary quality of those by Vargas Llosa, Fuentes, or García Márquez, they are far from negligible, and they constituted a discernible trend as the 21st century neared.