Top of page

New Online: Recordings from the Archive of Hispanic Literature

Share this post:

This is a guest post by Cataline Gómez, a reference librarian in the Hispanic Division. It was first published on “4 Corners of the World,” the blog of the Library’s area studies divisions.

A listener enjoys a selection from the archive last month while sitting on the steps of the Library’s Jefferson Building. Photo by Catalina Gómez.

To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month this year, the Library released new digital material on the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape. For the past three years, we have provided online access to a growing number of recordings through the archive’s portal. The launch of 50 new recordings adds to the existing digital archive of prose writers and poets from all over the Americas and Spain and Portugal reading from their works.

The archive is a historical collection of close to 800 audio recordings of Luso-Hispanic writers. Since its inception in 1943, curators in the Hispanic Division have continued expanding on this project by recording, in the Library’s recording lab and abroad, some of the most important writers and poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. Our efforts to digitize this collection are ongoing; with the 2018 launch, there are now 200 recordings available via online streaming.

This launch includes recordings from the 1950s onward, with many sessions recorded in the past five years. Reflecting the regions’ immensely rich cultural and linguistic diversity, the list includes the literatures of nations such as Haiti, Cuba, Spain, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Chile, Argentina and more. It also includes, for the first time, recordings of works in indigenous languages, such as the recording of Mexican scholar Ángel María Garibay (1892–1967), who reads Aztec poetry in Nahuatl and Spanish; Mexican writer Andrés Henestrosa (1906–2008), who reads works in Zapotec, a pre-Columbian language from Oaxaca, Mexico; and poet Andrés Alencastre (1909–84), who reads verses in Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire. Another linguistic gem included in this release is a reading by Spanish writer Unai Elorriaga (1973– ) in Basque or “Euskara,” a Pre-Indo-European language spoken in northern Spain.

We hope you enjoy these literary treasures! Below is the complete list of newly available recordings:

  1. Argentine playwright Griselda Gambaro
  2. Bolivian poet Yolanda Bedregal
  3. Brazilian author and poet Adriana Lisboa
  4. Brazilian author and poet Tatiana Salem-Levy
  5. Chilean author Manuel Eduardo Hübner
  6. Chilean poet Angel Cruchaga Santa María
  7. Colombian author Héctor Abad Faciolince
  8. Colombian author Pablo Montoya
  9. Colombian essayist and novelist Eduardo Caballero Calderón
  10. Colombian poet Héctor Rojas Herazo
  11. Colombian poet Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda
  12. Costa Rican poet Mía Gallegos
  13. Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas
  14. Dominican poet Enriquillo Rojas Abreu
  15. Dominican writer José Gabriel Alcántara Almánzar
  16. Ecuadorian writer Alfredo Pareja y Díez Canseco
  17. Ecuadorian writer Demetrio Aguilera Malta
  18. Guatemalan-American author Francisco Goldman
  19. Haitian poet René Bélance
  20. Honduran poet and writer Rafael Heliodoro Valle
  21. Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza
  22. Mexican poet and short story writer Juan José Arreola
  23. Mexican poet and writer Andrés Henestrosa
  24. Mexican poet Homero Aridjis
  25. Mexican writer and translator Angel María Garibay K.
  26. Mexican writer María Luisa Mendoza
  27. Mexican-American poet Juan Felipe Herrera
  28. Nicaraguan poet, scholar, and folklorist Ernesto Mejía Sánchez
  29. Panamanian poet Ana Isabel Illuca
  30. Panamanian poet Ricardo J. Bermúdez
  31. Panamanian writer Joaquín Baleño C.
  32. Peruvian author Alonso Cueto
  33. Peruvian poet and writer Alberto Hidalgo
  34. Peruvian author Santiago Roncagliolo
  35. Peruvian poet Andrés Alencastre
  36. Peruvian poet Xavier Abril
  37. Peruvian-American author Daniel Alarcón
  38. Puerto Rican author José Agustín Balseiro
  39. Puerto Rican writer Rosario Ferré
  40. Puerto Rican author Esmeralda Santiago
  41. Salvadorean poet Manlio Argueta
  42. Spanish author Antonio Muñoz Molina
  43. Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón
  44. Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas
  45. Spanish author Unai Elorriaga
  46. Spanish poet César Antonio Molina
  47. Spanish poet Clementina Arderíu
  48. Spanish poet Vicente Aleixandre
  49. Spanish-Argentine author and poet Andrés Neuman
  50. West Indian playwright David Edgecombe

Comments

  1. Hi Wendi,
    This is an amazing contribution!
    Enhorabuena!
    Many thanks!
    Conchita

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *