Cloudburst: An Anthology of Hispanic Canadian Short Stories

The Past and Present of Hispanic Canadian Literature: An Overview

5 Cloudburst: An Anthology of Hispanic Canadian Short Stories brings together for the first time twenty-two fiction writers who work in the Spanish language in Canada, with a total of forty-two short stories (fifty in the original edition). Due to both the quantity of the stories and writers presented here and the quality of the stories themselves, the anthology is a landmark in the history of Spanish-language literature in Canada. Although we are proud of the fact that Hispanic Canadian writing now has so many high-calibre writers of both prose and poetry, we must not forget that it has been a long road, which began many years ago and has included numerous individuals and institutions that have championed and promoted Spanish literary production in Canada. The founding steps of what was to become Hispanic Canadian literature were taken at the end of the Spanish Civil War, when many of those who were exiled chose Canada as their new country. Regarding that period and the activity undertaken by those Spaniards, in his fundamental book Latinocanadá: A Critical Study of Ten Latin American Writers of Canada, critic Hugh Hazelton writes: SeveralofthecommunitycentresthattheyestablishedinToronto published poems and short stories by these early arrivals, typing The Past and Present of Hispanic Canadian Literature: An Overview Cloudburst 6 [them] or later mimeographing them on the centres’ walls. These works dealt largely with the horrors of the civil war and the exiles’ longing for their homeland, just as the early works of Latin American refugees would do thirty years later. This Peninsular immigration increased during the 1950s and 1960s as more Spanish and Portuguese speakers left their countries’ repressive regimes and struggling economies to search for work in Canada. (5) As Hazelton indicates, other Spanish intellectuals joined this initial wave, among them the poet, novelist and translator Jesús López-Pacheco (1930–1996), who achieved significant renown in Spain as a poet and novelist. He immigrated to Canada in 1968, after accepting a teaching position at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where he would continue his literary and translation work. The constant influx of immigrants from Argentina, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, and which continues today, has produced important figures in Spanish-language literature in Canada. This is the case of the Italo-Argentine poet Margarita Feliciano, the poet and fiction writer Nela Rio, and the novelist and short story writer Pablo Urbanyi, authors with a considerable track record. To this list should be added the young Argentine writers Ramón de Elía and Diego Creimer, both included here, who show strong promise. However, the group of immigrants that has succeeded in making the most outstanding contribution to Hispanic Canadian literature, by virtue of the sheer number of writers among them and of their ability to join together in various initiatives to promote and disseminate their works, has been the Chileans. As Hazelton notes: Large-scale literary activity by Latin Americans in Canada began in earnest, however, with the advent of the first Chilean refugees following the coup d’état that overthrew President Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973. Most Chileans coming to the country settled in or around the large urban centres of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, with smaller communities forming in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton. (7) The Past and Present of Hispanic Canadian Literature 7 One of the publishing projects initiated by members of the Chilean community at the end of the 1970s was the creation of Ediciones Cordillera, which published works by Chilean authors such as Leandro Urbina, Jorge Etcheverry, and Naín Nómez. In reference to the genesis of Cordillera and its leftist nature, along with its link to a wider solidarity, Jorge Etcheverry writes: This resulted, firstly, in Ediciones Cordillera, in Ottawa, whose editorial board consisted mainly of writers who were delegates of their political parties, and whose first publications were photos of Mars, funded by a combination of community solidarity activities (peñas), the salaries of teachers at the Chilean School in Ottawa at the time [. . .], and government funds obtained through the Latin American Children’s Fund, a solidarity group basically focused on Central America. (Etcheverry, “Notas sobre la recepción” 1) In an interview with the writer Ramón Sepúlveda, Etcheverry refers to the members of Cordillera: Here in Ottawa, for a, b, or c reasons, a series of writers from Chile—some already known and...