Jean-Paul Sartre and Latin American narrative Boom

Abstract

Jean-Paul Sartre's influence on twentieth-century Latin American narrative has a special chapter in what was the boom of that narrative in the sixties and, within it, it should be highlighted the decisive influence on authors as different from each other as Ernesto Sabato or Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as on the criticism that legitimized the phenomenon. In addition, although the theories of What is literature? had repercussions since the fifties, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and the new publishing diffusion forced novelists and critics to update and revise the relations between literature and political praxis. Added to this was the importance of Sartre as a public figure, which also had consequences at the Latin American level in those years.