January 1804 marks Haitian independence from French colonial rule. Self-liberated enslaved people on the island led and carried out the only successful insurrection by enslaved peoples in the Western Hemisphere. The Latin American, Caribbean, and European Division (LACE) has released a research guide, “Freedom in the Black Diaspora: A Resource Guide for Ayiti Re-imagined.”
Combining work at Arizona State University Library and the Library of Congress, this post discusses contemporary Brazilian woodblocks, chapbooks, and artists books to illuminate contemporary Brazilian reflections on the Canudos War (1896-1897), Black Brazilian heroines, and the important connections between graphic design, poetry and small press publications in Brazil.
If These Walls Could Talk is a Story Map that recreates the experience of walking into the Hispanic Reading Room where four gigantic, richly colored murals by the Brazilian artist Cândido Portinari welcome visitors to the Library of Congress.
To commemorate Women’s History Month, we celebrate Latina Luminarias--Mexican revolutionary soldaderas; activists Jovita Idar, Luisa Moreno, Sylvia Rivera, and Antonia Hernández; librarian Pura Belpré; singers Celia Cruz and Joan Baez, and writer Kali Fajardo-Anstine--women whose leadership and achievements lit the way and inspired others to follow their own bright paths.
(The following is a post by Georgette Dorn, Chief of the Hispanic Division.) On Dec. 7, 2016, the Hispanic Division honors the great Chilean writer José Donoso on the 20th anniversary of his death. I recorded Donoso on three different occasions for our Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape — twice at the Library of …
(The following is a post by Marília Costa, Researcher in the Hispanic Reading Room, and Talía Guzmán-González, Reference Librarian in the Hispanic Division.) You are probably familiar with the postcard images of Brazilian beaches, the country’s soccer stars, and samba music. Now it’s time to get to know the contemporary literature of one of Latin …
(The following is a post by Juan Manuel Pérez, Reference Specialist, Hispanic Division.) Through 2016 Nicaragua and the Spanish-speaking world have been celebrating the 100th anniversary of the death of one of Latin America’s greatest poets, Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, universally known as Rubén Darío (1867-1916). His poetry ushered in a literary movement known as …
(The following is a post by Talía Guzmán-González, Reference Librarian, Hispanic Division.) Since 1966 the Library of Congress’ overseas office in Rio de Janeiro has been collecting publications by civic grassroots and political organizations, government agencies and NGOs in an effort to document Brazilian social movements and provide primary resources to researchers. This collection of …
(The following is a repost of an interview conducted by Catalina Gómez, Reference Librarian, Hispanic Division. This interview originally appeared as part of the Interview Series of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress.) Juan Gabriel Vásquez was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1973. He is the author of seven novels, including …
