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Abstract:
In the 1960s, the Cuban Revolution sparked great interest in Latin America throughout the United States. Not coincidentally, the promotion and translation of literature from Latin America increased dramatically during this period. This essay explores the interplay of market and political forces in the promotion of Latin American literature in the United States through an examination of two programs funded by Rockefeller family philanthropies during the 1960s and 1970s: a translation subsidy program supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and administered by the Association of American University Presses; and the Translation Program of the Center for Inter-American Relations, which was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers fund. I trace both programs' efforts at working the U.S. market to promote works and authors. I also study the political motivations fostering these efforts, exploring the extent to which these programs both sought to promote cross-cultural understanding and tried to further U.S. foreign policy interests.
We don't want to see the artistic and intellectual life used as a weapon in a cold war struggle, but we do feel that it is an essential part of the whole democratic spirit. . . . The artist necessarily must be a free man.
President John F. Kennedy to the founding members of the Inter-American Committee1
In the 1960s, the Cuban Revolution sparked great interest in Latin America throughout the United States, which was then dominated by cold war politics. During these same years, authors such as Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Mírquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa rose to prominence in Spanish-speaking countries and throughout the West as part of the literary movement known as the "Boom." The movement was both a literary and a marketing phenomenon that was characterized by a dramatic increase in the publication, translation, and distribution of Latin American literature and by the rise to power of professionals such as literary agents and editors who worked closely to maximize authors' success in the market. The Boom was also notable for its ideological coherence, which was grounded in support for the Cuban Revolution; many Latin American writers supported the Cuban government during its first decade, and the island quickly became a center of intellectual activity. Scholarship on the Boom has traditionally focused on the innovative and modernist qualities...