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  • The Latin American Literary Boom and US Nationalism during the Cold War by Deborah Cohn
  • Thayse Leal Lima
Cohn, Deborah. The Latin American Literary Boom and US Nationalism during the Cold War. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2012. Pp. 264. ISBN 978-0-8265-1805-7.

Celebrated, contested, and criticized, the Boom of Latin American literature has been a constant topic of academic debate. Its appeal to intellectual curiosity may be explained by the boom’s peculiar position in the crossroads of literary, cultural, ideological and political events, which makes it a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. In The Latin American Literary Boom and US Nationalism during the Cold War, Deborah Cohn explores this intricate history, investigating the infrastructure and politics behind the dissemination of Latin American literature.

Through a remarkable job of exhaustive archival research, the study reveals how the promotion of Latin American literature in the United States became entangled in political interests. Cohn analyses documents from universities, publishing houses, and cultural foundations and their affiliates, demonstrating that Cold War rhetoric pervaded most of these institutions’ efforts to attract sponsorship from both government agencies (such as the CIA and NCA), as well as cultural branches of major capitalist corporations (such as the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation). Support for Latin American literature was perceived and justified as a way of instilling a positive view of the United States amongst Latin American writers and intellectuals, a group that had a strong influence on public opinion back in their home countries and which, for the most part, were severe critics of US international policies.

Studies focusing on the Boom’s ideological and political background are not uncommon, the most influential perhaps being the memoir Personal History of the Boom (1972) by José Donoso. However, while the Chilean writer and other authors relate the phenomenon to the Latin American political context, Cohn adopts a much wider transnational perspective, which brings forth the competing forces and disparate intentions that were at stake in the circulation, promotion, and reception of Latin American literature abroad. This geopolitically expanded point of view, allied with a contrapuntual approach, allowed the author to consider the purposes and aspirations of the many actors involved in the boom. Cohn contrasts the interest of novelists and their editors in the promotion of their work abroad to the machinery of universities, cultural foundations, and publishing houses, most of which were financed by public and private US institutions concerned with harvesting the sympathy of internationally acclaimed intellectuals.

The dialogical analyses applied in the book also prevent it from establishing facile relationships of causality between the success of Latin American writers in the United States and the intentions of their international sponsors. In the introduction, Cohn clarifies that most of the writers, translators, and agents were unaware of government support. Therefore, the goals of cultural patrons were not always met, and writers were able to keep the integrity of their political and ideological views. She further argues that if at times the promotion of Latin American literature benefited from international support, at others, the Cold War agenda interfered in a negative way. Chapter 1, for example, focuses on the contradictions born of US anticommunist strategies that would go from courting left-leaning intellectuals as potential allies to considering them as imminent threats to national security. To illustrate this, the author recounts the infamous stories of writer Carlos Fuentes and critic Ángel Rama in their struggle with the McCarran-Walter act, which imposed visa restrictions to individuals considered “subversive.” The authors faced visa impediments despite having received, on several occasions, sponsorship indirectly offered by governmental agencies. The second chapter also offers an emblematic example of Cold War policy ambiguity and unpredictability, and shows how the 1966 PEN Congress compromised with the establishment proposing themes that fit official US ideology, while also creating an opportunity for authors to publicize the Latin American agenda of mutual cooperation and solidarity.

In chapters 3 and 4, Cohn argues that universities and private non-governmental institutions that were invested in the promotion of Latin American literature also acted as indirect agents of cultural diplomacy. These institutions used the growing interest in Latin America after the Cuban [End Page 784] Revolution...

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