Looking over their shoulders, they've dubbed themselves "McOndo." The term is a tip of the hat to Macondo, the fictional town in which Garca Mrquez's novels are set, as well as to its many seemingly mass-produced clones. The McOndo movement surfaced in the mid 1990s with the publication of an anthology, also named "McOndo," of works by writers under 35. Among them are Alberto Fuguet and Sergio Gmez of Chile, Argentina's Rodrigo Fresn and Martin Rejtman, and Peru's Jaime Bayly. According to Paz Soldn, critics are beginning to talk about a "McOndo sensibility."
His new novel, "The Matter of Desire" (Mariner, paperback, $12), is about a Latin American professor at the University of Wisconsin coming to terms with his father's political martyrdom in Bolivia. Its bi-hemispherical characters are city dwellers who carry iPods and follow MTV.
The writer, who teaches literature at Cornell University, talked from his home in Ithaca, N.Y. "The Matter of Desire" is his first book to be translated into English.
Can you talk about why the McOndo movement came into existence?
I think for the generation of writers who came of age in the early '90s, we came at a moment when Latin America was primarily known by magical realism abroad. . . . It became so successful that it became reductionist. People would equate it with [all Latin American culture]. . . . I would say there was an unconscious rejection. There was a whole generation of Latin Americans [in which] no one was doing magical realism. . . . It took six years to realize something was going on [with the publication of the "McOndo" anthology]. . . .
In the '80s, Latin America became less rural and more urban. Four of the largest cities in the world -- Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires -- are in Latin America. We felt [we wanted] to show this in writing, this new environment, with shopping centers and TVs. . . .
When we first published, there was a backlash from the literary establishment. We were seen as the equivalent of the American Generation X. We had sold out to American pop culture and were out of touch with the social and political realities of Latin America.
Part of your rejection of magic realism is that you think it exoticizes Latin America?
