“Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry,” said Gabriel García Márquez. And what a world he, and other Hispanic and Latinx authors, have built with their words through poetry and prose.
11 Spanish-language writers have won the Novel Prize in Literature, recognized for their literary works written in the Spanish language across Hispanic culture. Gabriel García Márquez is one of them, earning his recognition in 1982. His 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a pillar of Hispanic literature, as well as a trailblazing work in the genre of magical realism. Love in the Time of Cholera is also a best-selling work by Márquez.
Junot Díaz won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. With a Dominican-American main character, the book showcases the duality of mixed cultures as Oscar Wao tries to overcome his family’s fukú curse to fall in love, as well as become the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien.
Maria Hinojosa is a veteran journalist and host of NPR’s “Latino USA,” but it is her memoir, Once I Was You, that takes readers on her journey as a Latinx immigrant woman navigating struggles, heartbreak, and triumph in her professional and personal life.
For more recommended Hispanic and Latinx authors and books, check out these articles:
