Curly Velasquez: A lone man wanders a desolate town where time stands still, and he can't tell who's slive and who's dead. The townspeople tell him disturbing stories of cruelty, all at the hands of his own father. 

And just when the man thinks he's had enough, he what? Too much of a spoiler?

Okay fine. Are you ready to get spooked?

Hi, I'm Curly Velasquez, and this is Crash Course Latin American Literature. Come in, if you dare. [Spooky laughter]

[Theme music]

Latin Americans are no strangers to ghosts. [Guy in in ghost costume pops up behind him, but pops down when he looks]

Anyways, uh spirits of the dead figure heavily in Latin American religion and folklore, thanks to the blending of indigenous traditions with Spanish Catholicism. 

Like Mexico has Día de Muertos, Day of the Dead, a whole holiday dedicated to reunited with the spirits of loved ones, which is less funeral and more let's eat and hang out with our ancestors vibes. 

Yeah, give me that cheese man from the great beyond. 

But when it comes to Latin American literature, the horror genre is actually pretty recent. An early exception comes from Mexico and involves lots of ghosts. 

Let's take a look at the Curly notes. 

[Curly Notes]

The Mexican author Juan Rulfo was born into violence. He grew up in rural Jalisco, and when he was just 6 years old, his father was killed by bandits. 

A few years later, he witnessed the Cristeros rebellion, a deadly clash between Catholic peasants and the secular-led Mexican army. 

Amid the chaos of the rebellion, his mother also died. His land-owning family lost their money, and he moved to a boarding school in Guadalajara, before settling in Mexico City. 

But Rulfo never forgot his roots in the countryside, or the violent memories of his youth, and he channelled them into Pedro Páramo, which would become one of Mexico's most famous novels. 

The 1955 book tells the story of Juan Preciado, who, in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and his mother's death, goes in search of his estranged father. 

It's first line us so iconic, many Mexicans know it by heart.

"Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo."

Or, as Douglas J. Weatherford translated it into English, "I came to Comala because I was told my father lived here, a man named Pedro Páramo."

Much like Shakira's lyrics, it's more exciting in Spanish.

But Juan doesn't find his father in Comala. He's long dead. Instead, he finds a hot, abandoned ghost town, literally. 

The town is full of ghosts, and each one has stories to share of Juan's callous, land-owning father, who wreaked havoc through cruelty and violence and then then left the town to perish.

In fact, Páramo translates to wasteland or barren plain, a comment on both the physical environment and the emotional wreckage of the town. 

The spook factor is high as Juan wanders through what might be reality or just a dream. 

I won't spoil the twist, but let's just say it'll make you have to catch your breath. 

Readers didn't know what to make of Pedro Páramo at first. It was unlike anything they'd ever read, especially because of Rulfo's blend of historic influences and new ideas. 

Like, he flirts with environmental determinism, the idea that our physical environment controls our fate, which shows up in Latin American literature as far back as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's 1845 novel, Facundo. 

In Pedro Páramo, the barren town of Comala reflects the desolation of its people. And Rulfo also pulls inspiration from la novela del dictador, a genre of fiction that interrogates dictatorships. 

Rulfo characterises Páramo in similar ways to the dictators of the past, as a heartless strongman high off his own power.

At the same time, Rulfo tries out new styles and techniques, like stream of consciousness, where you write as though recording the character's thoughts, and devices like flashbacks to tell a story non-chronologically.

Using these literary tools, Rulfo creates a dreamlike world that speaks to the horrors of the real world. 

And while the casual readers were a bit perplexed, Pedro Páramo spoke to Latin American writers in a big way.

It majorly influenced the boom writers of the 1960s, who often manipulated reality through magical realism, a style that incorporates fantastical elements into real-world settings. 

Even Gabriel García Márquez said the book inspired him to write his magnum opus, Cien años de soledad — 100 Years of Solitude. 

But Pedro Páramo's influence didn't end with the boom. It's since inspired a while new generation of Latin American horror writers who have their takes on the issues of their day.

As we talked about in previous episodes, there was a lot of political unrest in Latin America in the 20th century, and this gave way to authoritarian governments, economic distress, and violence, leaving Latin Americans with a sense of fatigue and a lot of trauma to process. 

Babygirl, talk to any elder in our family, a lot of trauma to process. Abuela, is that you? [Giggles] Anyways....

Take the Argentinian writer, Mariana Enríquez. She was born in 1973 and grew up in the shadow of Jorge Videla's dictatorship.

So, witing horror became a tool for her to explore the feelings of fear and dread that hung over her as an adult. 

She writes of her work, "There's nothing more serious than a ghost: somebody trapped in its trauma, personal or historical  repeating it forever, impossible to calm down, unable to break the cycle, desperate for a voice and for justice." 

Like one of the stories in her 2016 collection, Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego — The Things We Lost in the Fire — follows 2 teens playing a prank in an old hotel that was a police academy under Videla.

When doors start slamming and the sound of marching fills the rooms, it might be literal ghosts, but it might be historical ones, too.

In this way, Enríquez points out how the past still haints the present. 

Enríquez's work is emblematic of a new subgenus of horror, dubbed the nuevo gótico lantinoamerica — New Latin American Gothic.

It takes on political and social problems in the region, like drug abuse, police violence, and poverty, and especially issues that affect women, using horror to call attention to them. 

As for the roots of today's horrors, some authors of the Female Gothic harken back many generations to before colonisation. 

For example, Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda's 2020 short story collection, Las voladoras, infuses horror with Incan mythology and folklore, from indigenous shamans flying creatures. 

In this ways, she links the challenges of today with far older ghosts. 

In an interview, Ojeda said, "I was born in a wild city which floods every year bringing in crocodiles, frogs, and serpents. A city which receives the ashes of active volcanoes...

"I've survived eruptions and earthquakes, and that's why I like to say my writing has a cardiac quality.."

In other words, the threatening energy, the life force of Ojeda's horror writing is inspired by the natural landscape.

So, some scholars call her collection an example of gótico andino, or Andean Gothic, horror fiction inspired by the landscape of the Andes Mountains. 

By focusing on the physical environment, Ojeda's work links back to Rulfo's. It has that same element of environmental determinism, where the natural world mirrors societal problems. 

But it also explores dangers unique to women, like the threat of sexual violence. And yet, there's something empowering about her work, too. 

Ojeda says the traditional stories that inspire her can actually help alleviate fear, and in her words, dissolve the harshness of the experience of being a Latin American woman. 

So, these days, there are enough Latin American Gothic books to fill your local library. Just check out Fernanda Melchor's Temporada de huracanes, Liliana Colanzi's Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro, María Fernanda Ampuero's Sacrificios humanos, and Dolores Reyes's Cometierra.

The genre's so popular that some folks have gone so far as to call it the new boom, the female boom. Though some authors of the subgenre think these labels are well-meaning, but ultimately misguided.

Calling it a female boom can make it seem like female Latin American writers are an anomaly, an alternate version of the standard male writer who's long been centereed in Latin American literature. 

Plus, as Ecuadorian author María Fernanda Ampuero points out, the term female boom "focuses on the wrong thing" — her gender, instead of her work. 

There's a lot to be scared of in this world we live in. 

[Pointing at the audience] No, okay, well. 

But a new generation of Latin American writers is using the horror genre to take their everyday fears and create something from them.

They draw attention to the issues that still plague their home countries, and they keep readers on their toes, warning that these imagined realities should remain the stuff of nightmares. 

Next time, we'll learn from Latin American writers who have crossed border and genres. I'll see you then. 

Thanks for watching Crash Course Latin American Literature, which was filmed at the Carlos Hernandez studio in Indianapolis, and was made with the help of all these spooked people. If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever, you can join our community on Patreon.