How to fall in love with Latin American literature - course RUB 3,375. from Level One, training 6 lectures, Date: December 1, 2023.

Latin America: history and modernity in literature
Let's look into history to find commonalities in the past of such dissimilar countries as Chile, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, Argentina... At the lecture we will understand what unites the culture of these countries and distinguishes it from the artistic heritage Europeans. Let us study the path of literature that led it to the “new” Latin American novel of the second half of the 20th century. Let's discuss the uniqueness of literature, which is manifested in the works of different authors. Among them are Argentines Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cuban Alejo Carpentier, Paraguayan Augusto Roa Bastos and Chilean Pablo Neruda. After this lecture we will be ready for a thorough reading of Latin American books.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: creative journey
Let us focus on Marquez’s ideas about the main opportunities and tasks of Latin American literature. Let's discuss the writer's creative path: from the stories "Fallen Leaves", "An Evil Hour" and "Nobody Writes to the Colonel" to the novel "Autumn of the Patriarch". We will see how the narrative of the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” gradually and multi-layeredly took shape.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: the novel “100 Years of Solitude”
During the lecture we will analyze the main artistic techniques that create the fascinating narrative of the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Let's talk about the diversity of loneliness, how it is presented in literature in general and in Marquez's book in particular. Let's bring together mankind's various ideas about time and trace how they were reflected in Marquez's novel, which has become a key book of our time.

Julio Cortazar: the path of a classicist to the “Game of Hopscotch”
Let's take a closer look at the special role of Borges and Cortazar in the history of the relationship between European and Latin American literatures. Let's study the creative path of Cortazar and his early works. Let's focus on the short stories and see how their magical effect on readers is created. Let us discuss the main features that unite Cortázar’s short prose, as well as the specifics of his first novel “Winnings,” the continuation of which was the famous book “The Hopscotch Game.”

Julio Cortazar: "Hopscotch"
Let's take a closer look at the complex structure of Cortazar's key novel. We will see how it embodies the principle of play, which is the most important for modern man, at all possible levels. Let us understand how the work not only represents the countless experimental possibilities of literature, but also becomes a kind of oracle for humanity as a whole and the unique personality of the reader in in particular. Let's strengthen close reading skills by learning to see multiple meanings in short episodes of a novel.