What do Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa have in common? Yes, of course, they are Latin American writers, protagonists of the boom. But also, they sent letters. You know, those papers with letters put in an envelope that, through the postman, arrive from one place to another. Remember? At Casa Amèrica Catalunya they not only remember but for five years they have dedicated a cycle to them, Correspondences, with twenty sessions dedicated to Gabriela Mistral, Julio Cortázar, Clarice Lispector, Néstor Almendros, Alejandra Pizarnik, Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Rosa Chacel and Ana María Moix, Emma Reyes, Rosario Castellanos, Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Idea Vilariño, Victoria Ocampo and Albert Camus, Jorge Herralde, José Lezama Lima, Elena Garro, Felisberto Hernández, Eunice Odio, Alejo Carpentier, María Rosa Lida and Yakov Malkiel and José Bianco .
Curated by Anna Caballé, who has attended all the sessions, and with the participation of students from the Conservatori del Liceu, several actors who bring the letters to life and an expert. Yesterday, in the same Conservatori, one day after turning 100 years old, the cycle was closed with the book The Letters of Boom (Alfaguara), which the writers mentioned at the beginning and with Xavi Ayén - who, yes! No! – telling their troubles.
Martín Brassesco is Gabriel García Márquez; Sergio Alessandria, Carlos Fuentes; Joaquín Daniel, Julio Cortázar, and Eloi Benet, Mario Vargas Llosa.
After the introductory words of the director of Casa Amèrica, Marta Nin, and the director of the Conservatori, Maria Serrat, the Councilor for Culture Xavier Marcet thanked them for their dedication, but also thanked the Balcells Agency, as responsible for Barcelona hosting so many writers. Latin Americans, and also stood out for the invitation to the City Council to be the guest of the Guadalajara book fair in 2025: “An interior Sant Jordi,” she says.
Then the musical combo (Koldo Munné on sax, Daniela Castaño on voice, Juan Sebastián Hurtado on guitar, Miguel Ramos and Xavier Ruiz on piano, Arnau Prats on double bass, Aina Campos on cello, Tramel Levalle on percussion and Pau Serra on the battery) starts the session.
First Caballé is saddened by the loss of the correspondence, but one cannot race against time, and after thanking Cristina Osorno, from Casa Amèrica and factotum of the cycle, he presents the incarnated writers.
It is 1964 and Fuentes writes about his reading of Hopscotch to Cortázar, who responds and talks about how “our books speak for us.” Fuentes writes to Vargas Llosa that he is envious of his The City and the Dogs, that “literature arises from a need” and also talks to him about Hopscotch and The Colonel Doesn't Have Anyone Write to Him by García Márquez. He plays the music they liked, that if Charlie Parker or Andrés Soto, first, then it will be Debussy, Jorge Macías, J.S. Bach and Walberto Villamil. Vargas answers yes, that “the nerve center of literature is in Latin America” and the role of the novel to convey the reality they live.
1965 arrives, and García Márquez writes to Fuentes, in the center of the network, and tells him for the first time that he already has a title for his next book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and talks to him about other literary solutions, and the future El autumn of the patriarch or his affairs with Carmen Balcells. And so, a friendship on demand – crossing borders and oceans: Paris, the United States, Mexico... and Barcelona.
Ayén, author of Those years of the boom (Debate, 2019), gives the keys to both the name and the friendship in the group, and with Caballé he sees Fuentes as the enthusiastic catalyst: “It is normal for you to fall in love with Carlos Fuentes because He is the great seducer.” By letter, yes, but then, like today, life goes on beyond paper. Or the screen.
