I recently reread a book by the controversial guru Osho about creativity and how, sometimes, the factor that determines that a creation is considered a masterpiece responds to the decision of a critic who in turn also condemns other authors or works of great value to complete oblivion. Gabriel García Márquez, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway or Federico García Lorca are just some examples of authors who have transcended time, but are they the only ones who deserved it? Why did everyone neglect these 5 great writers forgotten by the world?
Go for it.
Augusto Monterroso
«When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there»Is possibly the most famous and most analyzed short story in history. However, little else is known about the work of its author, the Honduran nationalized Guatemalan Augusto Monterroso. Among the many stories that the later compatriot of Miguel Angel Asturias (another increasingly forgotten author) wrote we found his only novel, The rest is silence, and several anthologies of stories such as his Complete Works or Perpetual Movement, examples of how the general public rarely remembers a mostly storyteller author.
Nawal El Saadawi
If you look at examples like the Literature Nobel, we will verify that despite the universality proclaimed by the Swedish committee, only 4 African writers have been awarded this award in the last 115 years. One more proof of the oblivion to which the West has subjected african literature throughout the twentieth century, especially with regard to its writers, being Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nadine Gordimer or Mariama Bâ, the first Senegalese woman who spoke openly about polygamy in her work My Longest Letter, some of the exceptions that managed to transcend beyond its borders. Gone are other authors such as the Egyptian Nawal El Saadawai, whose greatest work, Woman at zero point, speaks of the hardships of the female sex in a country where the 93% of their women confessed to having been raped at some point in their life. To claim.
Raphael Bernal
Activist, traveler and writer, the Mexican Raphael Bernal is one of the most forgotten authors in his country despite turning his most valuable novel, The Mongolian Conspiracy (1969), starring the detective Filberto García, into one of the first great crime novels of the Latin American framework. In turn, Bernal wrote one of the first Latin science fiction worksHis name was death (1947), his play La Carta (1950) was the first broadcast on television and one of his short story books, Trópico (1946), recently resurrected by the Jus publishing house, transports us to the coast of Chiapas as few works (and guides) manage to do it.
João Guimaraes Rosa
Despite being considered as the greatest writer in all of Latin America early 60's, João Rosa (header photo) was once forgotten his greatest work, Great backlands: sidewalks, stopped being printed in its version translated into English. According to many, the terrible translation was partly to blame, due in large part to the fact that Guimarães reflected in the work part of the language of the people of the backlands, desert area of northeastern Brazil where he worked as a doctor for several years. Characterized by a magical and characteristic prose, the one known as «Brazilian Ulysses»Encompasses man's relationship with his environment and his own demons.
Armando Palacio Valdes
Born in the Asturian town of Entralgo in 1853, Palacio Valdés was an author aware of his time, with journalism as a weapon of change and a realism that he embodied in more than thirty works, among which stand out The fourth estate (1888) or the essay "Literature in 1881", together with his friend Leopoldo Alas Clarin. The political message of Palacio Valdés penetrated the society of the time and even abroad, being a candidate on three occasions for the Literature Nobel, but in recent years few know of its existence, how well the essay shows A forgotten novelist from Spain, written by British researcher Brian J. Dendle. Luckily in Gutenberg.org you can relive part of the work of this Asturian author.
These writers forgotten by the world They had everything to become the Gabo or Vargas Llosa of tomorrow, and yet a bad translation, a wrong time and many other reasons condemned them to be trapped in a time, perhaps, until now.
What other forgotten writers do you know?
Perhaps what we are talking about is literary ignorance. and ignorance. But talking about forgotten writers seems absurd to me
From Palacio Valdés I recommend: Sister San Sulpicio. I have seldom laughed so much at a novel. He is so serious and formal, and she is so salty and spicy. It is very funny. It starts off very bland, but as the Sevillian novice takes control of the relationship and the plot, and puts him in trouble that falls on him like a mahogany wardrobe, the novel could not be more round and perfect