Antonio Skarmeta and the Post Boom.

Nash, Susan Smith

In doing ground-breaking research on the influential and subtly changing South American literary climate, Donald Shaw has provided an invaluable resource for English-speaking readers by assembling a book of literary criticism which is, at the same time, a close analysis of the work of an influential contemporary literary figure and a more general overview of a movement. Antonio Skarmeta and the Post Boom is one of the most lucid critical works to appear in years, and although the focus is on Antonio Skarmeta, a Chilean fiction writer, the primary concern of the book is to provide a thorough understanding of why twentieth-century South American fiction appears to have gone full circle, from realism to surrealism for "magical realism") and back again to realism, or what Skarmeta refers to as "hyperrealism."

Skarmeta, born in Antofagasta, Chile, in 1940, is a pivotal figure in many ways. First, his fiction reflects the influence of South and Central American "Boom" writers who rejected traditional realism in favor of a more surreal, "magical" or modernist approach. The Boom writers include but are not limited to Juan Carlos Onetti, Julio Cortazar, Juan Rulfo, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jose Donoso, and Ernesto Sabato. As Shaw points out, their primary defining characteristic has to do with their attitude toward reality. They depart from realism in fiction by moving away from representation based on verisimilitude and toward a more mythic or created imaginary or even fantastic reality. The supreme Boom novel, according to Shaw, is Garcia Marquez's Cien anos de soledad (1967).

While Skarmeta could not help but incorporate the Boom stance toward representation in his writing, he, like many other post-Boom writers, called into question its major tenets. He accused Boom writers of elitism and obsession with technique at the expense of true human concerns. While surrealism or magical realism may have been an appropriate reaction to the perceived North American cultural imperialism which was of great concern to many South American writers, Skarmeta argued that such a view of reality was no longer appropriate. According to Skarmeta, who was deeply affected by the Allende regime in Chile, it was now necessary to develop a more "readerly" (rather than "writerly") fiction, which should include new points of reference -- the cotidiano -- incorporating sports, pop culture, feminist thought, and current events.

In addition to providing an excellent overview of the philosophical and intellectual groundings of the post-Boom movement, the book contains Shaw's excellent close analysis of Skarmeta's important works. The most compelling chapter is the one covering Ardiente paciencia (1985), a novel which placed Skarmeta squarely in the midst of Chilean political controversy. Shaw's insight into how Skarmeta creates a new genre of ideological fiction by means of hyperrealism is often brilliant. What Shaw does not do, however, is discuss why or when this type of fiction may be relevant to the average North American reader. Nevertheless, Antonio Skarmeta and the Post Boom is an invaluable reference and critical work which is, in its thorough research and careful analysis, indispensable to scholars and general readers who are interested in contemporary South American literature.