Totalitarian governments abhor those writers and intellectuals who refuse to buckle to power. This is a proven fact. In certain cases, this rejection is paradoxical; some dictators were great readers, like Stalin and Fidel Castro. Stalin—who had a collection of some twenty thousand books of all kinds—did all he could to put an end to the Russian literature of his age. Castro was no less cruel. The cases of Heberto Padilla, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas, Lezama Lima, and many others are well known. The situation in Nicaragua, for its shamelessness, is all the more grotesque. Daniel Ortega, drunk on power for some time now, has made of the political purge an ideology and a system of government. His enemies are literally everyone; he does not distinguish between dissidents, the Catholic Church, students, and his own family. He has shown special hatred against his onetime Sandinista comrades. In the onslaught he has unleashed, two prominent Nicaraguan writers, both former Sandinistas, fell from grace in February 2023: Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli. The totalitarian duo of Ortega and Murillo not only persecuted them, but also forced them into exile. Still unsatisfied, they stripped them of their citizenship, along with ninety-three other political dissidents. The Sandinista dream has turned into a nightmare, taking the shape of a dungeon. Somoza could never have imagined that Daniel Ortega and his wife would be his closest disciples; with time, they would even best his record of horrific political repression in the history of our mistreated Latin America.
I mention all of this because the author featured on this issue’s cover is none other than Gioconda Belli, and her work, as well as her literary and public life, in 2024, cannot be uncoupled from the circumstances surrounding her exile in Spain, a result of the political persecution carried out by the Ortega family’s regime. Belli is widely known in the Hispano-American world as a novelist and poet. There is no need to add that she is also a political activist who has dedicated her life to defending human rights. This cover feature was coordinated by guest editor María José Bruña, a researcher at the Universidad de Salamanca, and includes contributions from Carmen Alemany Bay and Marisa Martínez Pérsico. Belli earned her place in the canon some time ago. She has been the recipient of countless literary prizes. Suffice it to mention the most recent, the 2023 Reina Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize, to highlight the impact of her work on Spanish-language literature both within and outside her home country. Literature and exile are two constants that appear ceaselessly on our continent (as Cuban writers found out long ago, like Venezuelan writers now). No one can understand exile—how it feels to be unable to return to a country that is at once a question and a puzzle, as the following verses from Belli attest: “What are you / but a tiny triangle of earth / hidden in the center of the world?”
This issue’s second dossier is a fruit of coincidence. It is dedicated to Venezuelan writer Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez. This initiative came about thanks to two devotees of his work: translator Barbara Riess and Venezuelan academic Wilfredo Hernández. Writer and academic Miguel Gomes also participates in this dossier, exploring the multifaceted oeuvre of this Venezuelan author, based in Spain since 1996. Méndez Guédez’s literary production is extensive and varied. Gomes highlights the following: “In the sphere of the novel, Méndez Guédez’s contributions stand out because of their experimental nature.” From this perspective, Gomes analyzes three of his novels in particular: Los maletines, El baile de madame Kalalú, and La ola detenida. Wilfredo Hernández, in his essay “Briefcases from Caracas by Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez: A Central Novel in the Chavism Cycle,” examines how this book offers a “meticulous, erudite, alternative representation of Venezuelan culture under Chavism.” The tragedy that began under the administrations of Hugo Chávez has only worsened under the regime of Nicolás Maduro, marked by corruption and drug trafficking. It is no exagerration to say these two men have achieved the unthinkable: they have bankrupted the country with the largest oil reserves in the world and forced the majority of Venezuelan writers into exile. No in-depth analysis of Venezuela’s circumstances is necessary to understand what Gomes says of Méndez Guédez: he is “one of the first Venezuelan writers to develop a diasporic sensibility related to the tragic political and social circumstances that began towards the end of the twentieth century.” Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba show us, again and again, that revolution made absolute is not a path to freedom or change, but rather quite the opposite: a repressive machinery behind the inhuman face of totalitarianism.
There are new offerings in this issue’s other sections as well, including essays by Daniel Zavala and Miguel Ángel Benítez, both finalists in our second annual essay contest. We are delighted to publish writers who uphold the genre of the essay, and we are proud to do the same. I would like to pause briefly on this subject. The essay emerged alongside modernity. A little over four hundred years have passed since the publication of Montaigne’s Essais, and the essay lives on, albeit hidden, marginalized, and underappreciated. Nevertheless, the contest we organize yearly at LALT goes to show that the essay continues to follow its own path, turning its back—it must be said—on other forms of written thought, and especially those academic reports known as “papers,” which once sought to take the place of the essay and, why not, Latin American thought itself.
In our interview section, I’d like to highlight the work of Juan Camilo Rincón. For this issue, he has prepared a conversation with a writer of great literary promise: Andrea Mejía of Colombia. In another interview, poet Francisco Véjar speaks at length about Jorge Teillier’s work as a translator, the inception of his intertextualities, and several hitherto unknown readings of his work. Reading this interview, we get the impression that there is a Teillier who goes beyond the idea of the “laric poet.” Likewise in this issue, as always, we feature articles originally published in World Literature Today (WLT), now available for the first time in Spanish. The same goes for Hablemos, escritoras, sharing in this issue interviews with María Negroni of Argentina, Margo Glantz of Mexico, and Venezuelan-Bolivian writer Magela Baudoin.
Speaking of novelties, I would also like to make special mention of Indranil Chakravarty’s essay on Julio Cortázar’s 1963 visit to New Delhi, when Octavio Paz was Mexico’s ambassador to India: a text rich in fascinating personal anecdotes from Latin American literary history. In our translation sections, we feature excerpts from books by Marília Arnaud, Lolbé González Arceo, and Yásnaya Elena A. Gil, as well as several texts reflecting on the craft of translation. Nothing is missing from this issue: the poetry, fiction, and essay sections are jam-packed, with much to read and many never-before-seen texts.
2025 is right around the corner, full of promise and uncertainty. No one knows what’s going to happen next. Let us hope that the literary word continues to discomfort power, especially for totalitarian governments of all sorts. It is clear that we are far from freeing ourselves from totalitarianism in our region. One need only look at how, even in the twenty-first century, writers are still being persecuted for their ideas.
Let us return to literature in these times of unease. Chilean poet Jorge Teillier once wrote, “Poetry is to breathe in peace / such that others might breathe, / a poem is fresh bread, / a wicker basket.” This is no answer, no way to save ourselves: it is a reminder that all great literature hides a secret reality. One the dictators of the day will never touch.
Maybe that is what it’s all about; maybe that’s what LALT is all about.
We hope our readers will enjoy this final issue of 2024.
Translated by Arthur Malcolm Dixon