The period in which Latin-American writers became internationally celebrated is known as the ‘boom’. Writers like Neruda, Marquez, Paz and Vargas Llosa reached their commercial and international peak. After the Cuban Revolution, Latin-America’s writers and intellectuals had a new-found optimism for their region. This led to great experimentation in their literary work. In the subsequent years, the realization that Cuba was not to become a beacon of freedom but rather a bastion of political and creative repression led writers to create in a way that was not at all pessimistic; the surreal, fantastic and existential (the ability to carve out one’s own way from life’s circumstances) became the essential elements to one of the most celebrated literary movements of the past century.

Often overshadowed by the boom are the Latin-American writers who preceded them. This was partly by design: the writers of the boom considered themselves to be an ‘orphan’ movement. In reality, they owed some reference to the Nicaraguan / Central American ‘Vanguardia’ movement which itself was a reflection of surrealism. There is a great variety in Latin-American literature. In a sense, we are consistently rediscovering our Hispanic literary heritage.

In total, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to six writers. Get to know all six of the Latin American Writers who have won the prestigious literary prize below. The fifth Latin American Nobel Prize Winner for Literature is Octavio Paz:

From adolescence I have written poems and I have not stopped writing them. I wanted to be a poet and nothing more. In my books of prose I made up my mind to serve poetry, to justify and defend it, and to explain it to others and to myself. I soon discovered that the defense of poetry, despised in our century, was inseparable from the defense of liberty. From there my passionate interest in the political and social issues that have agitated our times.

Alexis de Toqueville Prize Speech, 1989

Octavio Paz worked his entire life to understand and explain to the world what it means to be Mexican. As a frequent editor and publisher of writers through the literary magazines he founded, Paz hoped to inject the voice of a people who have the blood of three cultures in a global stage.

The Art of Poetry – Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz’s Nobel Lecture – Nobelprize.org