[Dr. Drib]

I was thinking about this thread at length because I'm a very big fan of Latin American Literature, specifically what's known as the Boom period of the 60s and 70s.

For example, this would include Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar and Mario Vargas Llosa among others.

Their work of this time is characterized by experimentation with narrative techniques, combined with an exuberance of political historicism and imagination. This was a time when Magical Realism was a catch-all phrase that many Latin American writers were lumped into.

A book I would really like to see is Vargas Llosa's Conversation in the Cathedral. This work looks at power structures in Peru and is a chilling glimpse into that country's politics of the 1950s. Many critics consider this Vargas Llossa's masterpiece. It's not an easily accessible work to read, due in part to the author's way of shifting back and forth in Time as he develops and explores his narrative.

I've written to Sony asking for Vargas Llosa's work to be made available. He's an important writer, one who may win next year's Nobel Prize in Literature. (These writers are also rumored "favorites": Joyce Carol Oates, Haruki Murakami, and Carlos Fuentes.)

Don