Daniel Balderston

A Beautiful, Sinister Fairyland: Gay Sunshine Press Does Latin America

An essay about Gay Sunshine Press and Latin America should start off with an attempt at seducing the reader, which is why we opted for the tacky allure of “beautiful” and “sinister” in the title. The phrase itself appears in an essay titled “Latin America: Myths and Realities,” written by E. A. Lacey and published in the tabloid journal Gay Sunshine in 1979, and it gives a good idea of what Latin America meant for at least part of the gay radical San Francisco arm of the movement. The two words, in tense relationship with each other, describe the state of mind of at least three authors who “worked” Latin America for the press: Lacey himself, Winston Leyland, and Erskine Lane. The words register what those observers saw as they engaged in missionary work from San Francisco to Rio de Janeiro, while they blended beat culture with samba, turned political liberation into a politics of identity, and experimented in the Guatemalan highlands with a transculturated politics, two-thirds Zen Buddhism and one-third Mayan spirituality. “Latin America was seen as being—with that exasperating quality of paradox that inevitably creeps into our perception of the alien and unfamiliar—both magical and menacing, a beautiful, sinister fairyland where the usual rules of logic were suspended and anything good or bad might happen, and usually did.”1 It is an image that belongs to the imagination of the foreign voyeur, the disenchanted white homosexual who follows the footsteps of a modern-day Rimbaud—leaving civilization for the “menacing” context that beauty provides, in a constant “deréglement des senses” of suspended logic. The magic was all in the eyes of the beholder, as was the sense of anticipation, the beauty, the threat, and even the “exasperating” paradox that is but the result of the perception of an alien object, or a place— “fairyland” as the unexpected, equivocal term in this scenario. As far as “fairyland” goes, Lacey was himself most probably not quoting Rimbaud but expressing the exoticism and marvel of the magical realist representation of Latin America. And one could not help but notice that the form of embodiment for this reality strokes the other meaning of fairy—“fey,” or “queer.” It is as if what Alejo Carpentier called “lo real maravilloso” Daniel Balderston and José Quiroga A Beautiful, Sinister Fairyland

The Latin American short story : an annotated guide to anthologies and criticism

Introduction Primary Materials: Anthologies Latin America: General Anthologies General Anthologies in English Translation Regional Anthologies Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic Ecuador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Puerto Rico El Salvador Uruguay Venezuela Secondary Materials: Criticism Index of Authors Index of Critics Index of Titles Index of Themes

Contemporary Spanish American poets : a bibliography of primary and secondary sources

Preface Periodicals Adoum, Jorge Enrique (Ecuador) Appratto, Roberto (Uruguay) Arenas, Braulio (Chile) Aridjis, Homero (Mexico) Becerra, Jose Carlos (Mexico) Belli, Carlos GerMAn (Peru) Benedetti, Mario (Uruguay) Berenguer, Amanda (Uruguay) Blanco, Alberto (Mexico) Bonifaz Nuno, Ruben (Mexico) Bracho, Coral (Mexico) Cadenas, Rafael (Venezuela) Cardenal, Ernesto (Nicaragua) Carranza, Eduardo (Colombia) Carrera, Arturo (Argentina) Castellanos, Rosario (Mexico) Cerruto, Oscar (Bolivia) Cervantes, Francisco (Mexico) Charry Lara, Fernando (Colombia) Chumacero, Al (Mexico) Cisneros, Antonio (Peru) Cobo Borda, Juan Gustavo (Colombia) Cross, Elsa (Mexico) Cuadra, Pablo Antonio (Nicaragua) Cunha, Juan (Uruguay) Dalton, Roque (El Salvador) Deniz, Gerardo (Mexico) Diego, Eliseo (Cuba) Echavarren, Roberto (Uruguay) Eielson, Jorge Eduardo (Peru) Fernandez Retamar, Roberto (Cuba) FerRE, Rosario (Puerto Rico) Fierro, Enrique (Uruguay) Gaitan Duran, Jorge (Colombia) Gelman, Juan (Argentina) Gerbasi, Vicente (Venezuela) Giorgio, Marosa di (Uruguay) Girri, Alberto (Argentina) Hahn, Oscar (Chile) Heraud, Javier (Peru) Huerta, David (Mexico) Huerta, EfrAIn (Mexico) Juarroz, Roberto (Argentina) Kamenszain, Tamara (Argentina) Kozer, Jose (Cuba) Lezama Lima, Jose (Cuba) Lihn, Enrique (Chile) Liscano, Juan (Venezuela) Lizalde, Eduardo (Mexico) Madariaga, Francisco (Argentina) Martinez Rivas, Carlos (Nicaragua) Milan, Eduardo (Uruguay) Millan, Gonzalo (Chile) Mir, Pedro (Dominican Republic) Mitre, Eduardo (Bolivia) Molina, Enrique (Argentina) Montejo, Eugenio (Venezuela) Montes de Oca, Marco Antonio (Mexico) Mutis, Alvaro (Colombia) Orozco, Olga (Argentina) Pacheco, Jose Emilio (Mexico) Padilla, Heberto (Cuba) Parra, Nicanor (Chile) Pasos, Joaquin (Nicaragua) Paz, Octavio (Mexico) Perlongher, Nestor (Argentina) Pizarnik, Alejandra (Argentina) Quessep, Giovanni (Colombia) Rojas, Gonzalo (Chile) Romero, Elvio (Paraguay) Sabines, Jaime (Mexico) Saenz, Jaime (Bolivia) Sanchez Pelaez, Juan (Venezuela) Segovia, ToMAs (Spain-Mexico) Shimose, Pedro (Bolivia) Sologuren, Javier (Peru) Sosa, Roberto (Honduras) Sucre, Guillermo (Venezuela) Teillier, Jorge (Chile) Varela, Blanca (Peru) Verastegui, Enrique (Peru) Vilarino, Idea (Uruguay) Vitale, Ida (Uruguay) Vitier, Cintio (Cuba) Westphalen, Emilio Adolfo (Peru) Zurita, Raul (Chile) General Works Chronological List of Poets Index of CriticsPreface Periodicals Adoum, Jorge Enrique (Ecuador) Appratto, Roberto (Uruguay) Arenas, Braulio (Chile) Aridjis, Homero (Mexico) Becerra, Jose Carlos (Mexico) Belli, Carlos GerMAn (Peru) Benedetti, Mario (Uruguay) Berenguer, Amanda (Uruguay) Blanco, Alberto (Mexico) Bonifaz Nuno, Ruben (Mexico) Bracho, Coral (Mexico) Cadenas, Rafael (Venezuela) Cardenal, Ernesto (Nicaragua) Carranza, Eduardo (Colombia) Carrera, Arturo (Argentina) Castellanos, Rosario (Mexico) Cerruto, Oscar (Bolivia) Cervantes, Francisco (Mexico) Charry Lara, Fernando (Colombia) Chumacero, Al (Mexico) Cisneros, Antonio (Peru) Cobo Borda, Juan Gustavo (Colombia) Cross, Elsa (Mexico) Cuadra, Pablo Antonio (Nicaragua) Cunha, Juan (Uruguay) Dalton, Roque (El Salvador) Deniz, Gerardo (Mexico) Diego, Eliseo (Cuba) Echavarren, Roberto (Uruguay) Eielson, Jorge Eduardo (Peru) Fernandez Retamar, Roberto (Cuba) FerRE, Rosario (Puerto Rico) Fierro, Enrique (Uruguay) Gaitan Duran, Jorge (Colombia) Gelman, Juan (Argentina) Gerbasi, Vicente (Venezuela) Giorgio, Marosa di (Uruguay) Girri, Alberto (Argentina) Hahn, Oscar (Chile) Heraud, Javier (Peru) Huerta, David (Mexico) Huerta, EfrAIn (Mexico) Juarroz, Roberto (Argentina) Kamenszain, Tamara (Argentina) Kozer, Jose (Cuba) Lezama Lima, Jose (Cuba) Lihn, Enrique (Chile) Liscano, Juan (Venezuela) Lizalde, Eduardo (Mexico) Madariaga, Francisco (Argentina) Martinez Rivas, Carlos (Nicaragua) Milan, Eduardo (Uruguay) Millan, Gonzalo (Chile) Mir, Pedro (Dominican Republic) Mitre, Eduardo (Bolivia) Molina, Enrique (Argentina) Montejo, Eugenio (Venezuela) Montes de Oca, Marco Antonio (Mexico) Mutis, Alvaro (Colombia) Orozco, Olga (Argentina) Pacheco, Jose Emilio (Mexico) Padilla, Heberto (Cuba) Parra, Nicanor (Chile) Pasos, Joaquin (Nicaragua) Paz, Octavio (Mexico) Perlongher, Nestor (Argentina) Pizarnik, Alejandra (Argentina) Quessep, Giovanni (Colombia) Rojas, Gonzalo (Chile) Romero, Elvio (Paraguay) Sabines, Jaime (Mexico) Saenz, Jaime (Bolivia) Sanchez Pelaez, Juan (Venezuela) Segovia, ToMAs (Spain-Mexico) Shimose, Pedro (Bolivia) Sologuren, Javier (Peru) Sosa, Roberto (Honduras) Sucre, Guillermo (Venezuela) Teillier, Jorge (Chile) Varela, Blanca (Peru) Verastegui, Enrique (Peru) Vilarino, Idea (Uruguay) Vitale, Ida (Uruguay) Vitier, Cintio (Cuba) Westphalen, Emilio Adolfo (Peru) Zurita, Raul (Chile) General Works Chronological List of Poets Index of Critics