Gay Literature

If you haven't read Kiss of the Spiderwoman by Manuel Puig you may have seen the film that made it famous all over the world (and provided William Hurt with an Oscar for his role as Luis Molina). His book A Buenos Aires Affair is a fantastic choice as well. For a very contemporary take on the stories of middle class gay Latin America read Jaime Bayly's work, although we can't find English translations of his best-seller No Se Lo Digas a Nadie (Don't Tell Anyone). For a very non-middle class view, Our Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo might scare you to death, while My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel offers a vivid description of life under a harsh right-wing dictatorship in the Chile of the 1980s. Another emerging writer is Boris Izaguirre, whose novel Villa Diamante hasn't been translated into English yet. Perhaps the classic text is Paradiso by Lezama Lima, who is considered the Proust of Latin America but is not yet available in translation at Amazon. His direct heir, Cuban writer Severo Sarduy, continued with an avant-garde style, infused by the culture and nature of the Caribbean. Another Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright, Reinaldo Arenas, also gained global fame through the movie adaptation of one of his books, Before Night Falls (the film netted Javier Bardem an Oscar nomination).