A lone man wanders a desolate town, where time stands still, and he can't tell who's alive and who's dead.

The townspeople tell him disturbing stories of cruelty - all at the hands of his own father.

And just when the man thinks he's had enough, he - What?

Too much of a spoiler?

Ok.

Are you ready to get spooked?

Hi!

I'm Curly Velasquez, and this is Crash Course Latin American Literature.

Come in if you dare.

*maniacal laugh* [THEME MUSIC] Latin Americans are no stranger to ghosts.

Anyways...Spirits of the dead figure heavily in Latin American religion and folklore, thanks to the blending of indigenous traditions with Spanish Catholicism.

Like, Mexico has Día de Muertos, Day of the Dead, a whole holiday dedicated to reuniting with the spirits of loved ones.

Which is less funeral vibes and more let's eat and hang out with our ancestors vibes.

Yeah, give me that chisme from the great beyond.

But when it comes to Latin American literature, the horror genre is actually pretty recent.

An early exception comes from Mexico... and involves lots of ghosts.

Let's take a look at the Curly Notes.

The Mexican author Juan Rulfo was born into violence.

He grew up in rural Jalisco, and when he was just six years old, his father was killed by bandits.

A few years later, he witnessed the Cristeros Rebellion, a deadly clash between Catholic peasants and the secular-led Mexican army.

Amid the chaos of the rebellion, his mother also died, his landowning family lost their money, and he moved to a boarding school in Guadalajara before settling in Mexico City.

But Rulfo never forgot his roots in the countryside, or the violent memories of his youth.

And he channeled them into "Pedro Páramo," which would become one of Mexico's most famous novels.

The 1955 book tells the story of Juan Preciado, who, in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and his mother's death, goes in search of his estranged father.

Its first line is so iconic, many Mexicans know it by heart: "Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo."

Or, as Douglas J. Weatherford translated it into English: "I came to Comala because I was told my father lived here, a man named Pedro Páramo."

Much like Shakira's lyrics, it's more exciting in Spanish.

But Juan doesn't find his father in Comala - he's long dead.

Instead, he finds a hot, abandoned ghost town - literally.

The town is full of ghosts.

And each one has stories to share of Juan's callous, landowning father, who wreaked havoc through cruelty and violence and then left the town to perish.

In fact, "Páramo" translates to "wasteland" or "barren plain," a comment on both the physical environment and the emotional wreckage of the town.

The spook factor is high, as Juan wanders through what might be reality or just a dream.

I won't spoil the twist, but let's just say it'll make you have to... catch your breath.

Readers didn't know what to make of "Pedro Páramo" at first.

It was unlike anything they'd ever read, especially because of Rulfo's blend of historic influences and new ideas.

Like, he flirts with environmental determinism, the idea that our physical environment controls our fate, which shows up in Latin American literature as far back as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's 1845 novel, "Facundo."

In "Pedro Páramo," the barren town of Comala reflects the desolation of its people.

And Rulfo also pulls inspiration from la novela del dictador, a genre of fiction that interrogates dictatorships.

Rulfo characterizes Páramo in similar ways to the dictators of the past, as a heartless strongman high off his own power.

At the same time, Rulfo tries out new styles and techniques, like stream of consciousness, where you write as though recording the character's thoughts, and devices like flashbacks to tell a story non-chronologically.

Using these literary tools, Rulfo creates a dreamlike world that speaks to the horrors of the real world.

But while casual readers were a bit perplexed, "Pedro Páramo" spoke to Latin American writers, in a big way.

It majorly influenced the Boom writers of the 1960s, who often manipulated reality through magical realism, a style that incorporates fantastical elements into real-world settings.

Even Gabriel García Márquez said the book inspired him to write his magnum opus, "Cien años de soledad," "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

But "Pedro Páramo's" influence didn't end with the Boom.

It's since inspired a whole new generation of Latin American horror writers- who have their own takes on the issues of their day.

As we talked about in a previous episode, there was a lot of political unrest in Latin America in the 20th century.

And this gave way to authoritarian governments, economic distress, and violence, leaving Latin Americans with a sense of fatigue and a lot of trauma to process.

Baby girl, talk to any elder in our family.

A lot of trauma to process.

[candle falls] [thunder] Abuela, is that you?

Anyway... [nervous laugh] Take the Argentinian writer Mariana Enríquez.

She was born in 1973 and grew up in the shadow of Jorge Videla's dictatorship.

So, writing horror became a tool for her to explore the feelings of fear and dread that hung over her as an adult.

She writes of her work, "There's nothing more serious than a ghost: somebody trapped in its trauma, personal or historical, repeating it forever, impossible to calm down, unable to break the cycle, desperate for a voice and for justice."

Like, one of the stories in her 2016 collection "Las Cosas que Perdimos en el Fuego," "The Things We Lost in the Fire," follows two teens playing a prank in an old hotel that was a police academy under Videla.

When doors start slamming and the sound of marching fills the rooms, it might be literal ghosts - but it might be historical ones, too.

In this way, Enríquez points out how the past still haunts the present.

Enriquez's work is emblematic of a new subgenre of horror.

Dubbed the nuevo gótico latinamericano, new Latin American gothic, it takes on political and social problems in the region, like drug abuse, police violence, and poverty - and especially issues that affect women - using horror to call attention to them.

As for the roots of today's horrors?

Some authors of the female gothic harken back many generations, to before colonization.

For example, Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda's 2020 short story collection, "Las Voladoras," infuses horror with Incan mythology and folklore, from Indigenous Shamans to mythical flying creatures.

In this way, she links the challenges of today with far older ghosts.

In an interview Ojeda said, "I was born in a wild city which floods every year bringing in crocodiles, frogs and serpents.

A city which receives the ashes of active volcanoes.

I've survived eruptions and earthquakes, and that's why I like to say my writing [has a] cardiac [quality]."

In other words, the threatening energy - the life force of Ojeda's horror writing - is inspired by the natural landscape.

So, some scholars call her collection an example of Gótico Andino, or Andean Gothic - horror fiction inspired by the landscape of the Andes Mountains.

By focusing on the physical environment, Ojeda's work links back to Rulfo's.

It has that same element of environmental determinism, where the natural world mirrors societal problems.

But it also explores dangers unique to women, like the threat of sexual violence.

And yet, there's something empowering about her work, too.

Ojeda says the traditional stories that inspire her can actually help alleviate fear, and in her words, "dissolve the harshness of the experience" of being a Latin American woman.

So, these days, there are enough Latin American gothic books to fill your local library.

Just check out Fernanda Melchor's "Hurricane Season," Liliana Colanzi's "You Glow in the Dark," Maria Fernanda Ampuero's "Human Sacrifices," and Dolores Reyes's "Eartheater."

The genre's become so popular that some folks have gone so far as to call it "the new boom," or "the female boom."

Though, some authors of the subgenre think these labels are well-meaning... but ultimately misguided.

Calling it a "female" boom can make it seem like female Latin American writers are an anomaly, an alternate version of the "standard" male writer, who's long been centered in Latin American literature.

Plus, as Ecuadorian author María Fernanda Ampuero points out, the term focuses on the wrong thing" - her gender, instead of her work.

There's a lot to be scared of in this world we live in.

Boo!

Hey!

Hey!

Ok, well... But a new generation of Latin American writers is using the horror genre to take their everyday fears and create something from them.

They draw attention to the issues that still plague their home countries.

And they keep readers on their toes, warning that these imagined realities should remain... the stuff of nightmares.

Next time, we'll learn from Latin American writers who've crossed borders... and genres.

I'll see you then.