Latin American Mystery Fiction

Introduction

Readers in Latin America countries of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean have long been attracted to mystery fiction. Because of their different perceptions of corruption in their public institutions, including their legal systems, the development and presentation of protagonists in their mystery and detective fiction varies markedly from the models one finds in North American mystery novels.

Mystery literary works in Latin America fall into two distinct groups. The first group, known as novelas de enigma, follows the classic mystery model of whodunits, which present readers with crimes and investigators who solve those crimes using logic and judicial resources. The novela de enigma formula usually presents investigators as gentlemanly amateurs who are detached from others who are involved in the crimes. These works generally do not evaluate, either directly or indirectly, the sociopolitical realities of the societies in which their mysteries are situated.

The second group, novelas negras, which are equivalent to hard-boiled detective novels, evolved as a negative reaction to the lack of realistic representations of social, psychological, and economic realities of the modern world in Latin American mystery fiction. In the United States, Prohibition, the Great Depression, gangsters, and other forms of social unrest created a populace that expected more realistic and critical representations of contemporary American life in their literary works. Novelas negras present protagonists as individuals with human frailties and limits. Crime investigators in these books exist within settings that include violence, corruption, uncertainty, and insecurity. Authors of novelas negras critique these societies, either directly or subtly, by exposing their flaws within the texts of their works.

Although works representing the two basic groups sometimes overlap, most Latin American mysteries can be assigned to one or the other group. Both novelas de enigma and novelas negras can be labeled as essentially costumbrista works—those whose texts include descriptions of the societies in which the stories are set. The books generally describe crime scene locales in detail, giving street names and making observations on ethnic, gender, social, and psychological facts. To some degree, all mystery novels link societal and psychological realities with crime. At the core of these novels are crimes, which often involve murders. However, behind the facts of the cases lie other conflicts that involve money or power or both. These very human values provide mystery writers with a basic formula that pits characters who seek money or power—including the power to take another’s life—against other characters who attempt to bring about resolutions to the crimes.

An element common to all works in the mystery genre is the involvement of audacious investigators. Sometimes these characters are mild mannered; at other times, they may be energetic extroverts. What is always present in any novel, however, is a person who doggedly pursues an explanation of a crime and the series of events that led up to it. In one form or another it is a literary work that pits the legal system of a specific region against those who choose to work outside the law.

Latin American Investigations and Forensics

Police departments in North American and European nations generally have extensive crime laboratories in which forensic analyses can be conducted. In those nations, such facilities are available to most crime investigators at almost any level, local, state or provincial, and federal. Although the quality of the equipment and the time required to process evidence may vary widely, systems of cooperation among different jurisdictions allow for widespread use of the facilities.

In Latin American nations, the situation is somewhat different, but most large municipalities have excellent forensic facilities. Many Latin American countries also maintain national forensic laboratories, often located within federal university systems. However, two things separate the Latin American forensics model from those of North America and Europe. First, police departments in small Latin American communities and those in almost all rural areas have little or no access to advanced forensics. Second, limited financial resources and backing restrict the use of the facilities that do exist to only high-profile cases and those that involve the wealthiest members of society. The same observation might also be made about facilities in North America and Europe, but to a far lesser extent than in Latin America.

A general shortage of verifiable evidence gathering and processing leaves most crime solving in Latin America to individual detectives, police officers, and members of the military, many of whom are underpaid and overworked. Some Latin American nations still have lower-level police officials who deal only with such matters as traffic violations and minor crimes and either do not receive salaries or receive only token salaries. Such officers count on “tips” to make ends meet. Moreover, because of the lack of access to forensic facilities, officers of local agencies must spend disproportionate amounts of time gathering information that could be more efficiently obtained from judicious use of forensics. For all these reasons, and others, there are many opportunities for abuses of power, extortion, and other forms of corruption.

Spain and Portugal as Models for Latin America

The development of Latin American mystery novels generally parallels that of mystery novels in North America, Spain, and Portugal. During the nineteenth century, American mystery writers tended to follow European models; consequently, their works tended to focus on their investigators’ personalities and prowess and on the unique characteristics of the crimes. By the time the American stock market crashed in 1929, Prohibition was ushering in a new realm of lawlessness and gangsters in the United States, and a new group of mystery writers were intent upon exposing the flaws of American society, judicial systems, and government in their mystery works. For example, the novels of Raymond Chandler, who set his stories in Los Angeles, were among the first in the United States to bring realism to the forefront in mystery fiction. Chandler exposed his readers to gangsters, political opportunists, corrupt police, drugs and the generally violent and unpredictable nature of crime in Los Angeles. His enforcers of the law typically become part of the problem and showed that it was not only the criminals who could not be trusted.

Historical differences between Latin America and Spain impeded the arrival of the novela negra in the old country. From 1936 to 1975, Spain endured the repressive dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Although the general public image of the guardia civil, or paramilitary federal police, was that of fraudulent enforcers of a fascist regime, authors within Spain were severely limited in their freedom to confront police and societal corruption directly. Immediately after the end of Franco’s regime, Spanish mystery writers began presenting most police investigators in a negative light, as loyal adherents to Franco’s state. However, after publication of Andreu Martins’sBarcelona Connection in 1988, Spanish mystery novels started presenting police investigators as persons capable of honesty within a system that was corrupt. Spanish novelas negras, following the lead of those of the United States and Latin America, gradually reduced their emphasis on the negativity of the fascist period. They returned to the formulaic novelas negras that critiqued Spanish society through the eyes and minds of honest investigators, caught up within an imperfect society.

Portugal also suffered a dictatorship, under Antonio Oliveira Salazar, who ruled from 1928 until 1968. As was the case with Spain, Portuguese readers of mysteries primarily read translations of novelas de enigma written by American and European authors during Salazar’s regime. Government censorship lessened during the 1970’s, and by the 1980’s, Portuguese mystery writers were freely publishing works that included critics of both the abusive Salazar period and the period in which they lived. One of the most exemplary of these mystery authors is Francisco José Viegas. His novels Crime em Ponta Delgada (1989) and Um céu demasiado azul (1995; a much too blue sky) both express revulsion with the Salazar regime. Their protagonist inspectors work within an environment in which the past of the Salazar era is juxtaposed with a better, but still unjust, legal system of the present. Novelas negras such as these would not have been allowed to go to press under Salazar’s regime.

Latin American Social and Historical Foundations

Mystery fiction deals with issues of power. These issues may be based on financial wrongdoing, such as robbery and extortion; personal power, such as physical abuse and murder; or society-based matters, such as political and religious conflicts. In one form or another, all novels deal with the interactions among the protagonists and these real-world issues. A key to understanding what aspects of the style, structure, and approaches to societal value systems are unique to Latin American mystery fiction is to understand the differences between the perceptions about matters of fairness, justice, and redemption held by members of different cultures.

North Americans are individualists, and most North American mystery fiction portrays investigators as somewhat lonely individuals confronting problems. These generally lonely protagonists not only have to resolve crimes and restore justice and honor in their society, but also they hold an enduring belief in the correctness of their sociopolitical system. In their view, anything can be achieved and the future offers endless possibilities to those who invest enough effort and faith in the system. North Americans tend to accept what their education has taught them: that while the sociopolitical realities of their culture may be flawed, individual effort can nevertheless find solutions to problems that threaten society.

With few exceptions, authors from the United States have held an abiding trust in the underlying ethics and regenerative possibilities of their country. This is seen in most works throughout its history. Even authors who have purposely exposed wrongdoing in society have written with the underlying assumption that their words may help bring about positive changes. These authors include the author whom most critics label the first mystery writer, Edgar Allan Poe. Another is Raymond Chandler, one of the founders of the hard-boiled school of detective novel writing.

In Latin America a quite different set of realities is playing out. Historical experience there has shown that individual effort and audacity seldom lead to any permanent improvement in social or political conditions. Collective efforts are the only ones that are fostered. The structure of Latin American society also mimics this collectiveness. People in Latin America tend to live in closer proximity to one another, in terms of both physical space and family structures. Latin Americans rarely consider themselves as courageous individualists. This is not to say that there are no individualists in Latin America, but rather that the collective consciousness is more accepted as the norm.

The fact that writers of mystery fiction in Latin America have not as many novelas de enigma as their North American counterparts is due, in great part, to the reality of their lacking faith that individuals can help bring about justice within overwhelmingly corrupt systems. Simply maintaining existing cultures in Latin American nations requires constant vigilance and resistance. The sociopolitical realities have always generated unstable institutions that have produced dictatorships and economic collapses. Latin Americans simply lack faith in the integrity of their governments and judicial systems, particularly the latter. Therefore, the concept of individual investigators who trust that the work they do will not be sabotaged by the system is a difficult one for Latin Americans to accept. Therefore, the concept of an individual investigator who trusts that the work being done will not be sabotaged by the system was difficult for a Latin American to accept. However, when the novela negra developed in North America and Europe and offered obvious criticisms of societal flaws and limits, it was soundly embraced and creatively expounded upon by many Latin American mystery writers.

Roots of Latin American Mystery Writing

Most literary critics regard Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” as the first mystery fiction work because it focused on the use of deductive reasoning and systematic investigation to solve a crime. That story and many other English-language mystery stories that followed were quickly translated into Spanish and Portuguese for an expanding readership in Latin America.

Novelas de enigmas were originally quite formulaic in content. In a typical North American or European story, a representative of a law-enforcement agency, usually a detective, investigates a crime. suspense is developed through an intense focus on the illegal act itself. The social and political realities of the culture in which the crime has taken place are of little or no concern to the story. This assumption of honesty in the political and law-enforcement segments of the society in which these early mystery fiction works are situated created a genre that was almost always written in English and then translated for Latin American consumption.

With some exceptions, mystery stories written by Latin Americans and located within Latin American nations did not appear. The reason was that the legal systems in many Latin American nations were not receptive to the basic idea of gentlemanly investigators working within systems that exist to deliver justice to the wronged and punishment to the guilty. This view of a reassuring society that had the confidence of its citizens in judicial matters was not entrenched in Latin America. The less admired and even less accepted authority of the police force and a perceived lack of fairness in the judicial systems in Latin America did not promote native writers of mysteries to emulate works of crime and punishment in the highly formulaic manners of the European and United States writers.

During the formative period of Latin American mystery writing, many authors used anglicized pen names and situated many of the stories in the United States or Europe. This allowed their readers to accept the validity of the idealized social setting their stories presented.

Cultural Shifts

More authentic Latin American mystery works arose as the genre outgrew its almost naïve faith in the decency of society in relationship to crime to one incorporating more realistic views of sociopolitical realities of contemporary Latin America. The arrival of the novela negra opened the door to a form of mystery novels that would allow native Latin American authors not only to express their creativity independently of North American and European norms but also to use their writings to critique their own societies and governments.

During the 1920’s, North American mystery writers attempted pragmatically to portray a society that was struggling with organized crime and its violent and corrupt influence in a capitalist system. This new subgenre removed the assumption of an honest society in which investigations could proceed without reference to cultural realities. Criminal mysteries would no longer be presented as aberrations in societies. Instead, the sociopolitical, cultural, and psychological traits that motivate crime become part of the message of the authors. The ever-present realities of machismo, hypocrisy, unbridled ambition and greed, illusions of glory, visions of power, and the full range of human and social distortion were presented as integral parts of the Latin American mystery fiction work.

This form of expression, sometimes described as determined realism, is perhaps the most distinguishing aspect of the Latin American mystery fiction. Novelas negra do not avoid realistic and critical portrayals of Latin American societies; instead, they expose the sociopolitical problems as being the major causes of crime and the lack of public faith in Latin American judicial systems.

Some Latin American women authors have created characters, usually detectives, who live in the United States but reflect the social realities of both countries and present feminist viewpoints that emphasize women’s roles in the expanding Latino immigrant population in the United States. Included in this group are Marcia Muller and Edna Buchanan.

Latin American mystery writings can be geographically grouped among four regions that have produced the vast preponderance of Latin American mystery fiction. Two of these regions are in the South American continent, one is geographically part of North America but culturally part of the Central American divide between North and South America, and the third is a Caribbean island nation.

River Plate Region Writers

One of the most prolific areas of Latin American mystery writing is the vast area around the mouth of South America’s Rio de la Plata that encompasses the metropolitan Buenos Aires region in Argentina and Montevideo in Uruguay and extends into the surrounding Argentine and Uruguayan countrysides. Argentina provided the earliest works of Latin American mystery fiction.

Before the 1930’s, most mystery and detective novels published in the southern part of South America were translations of foreign authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Carlos Olivera (1854-1910) translated Poe’s writings into Spanish for an ever-expanding readership in Argentina. Some writers, such as Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937), used the classic formulaic structure of the early European authors in their own works. Quiroga’s only mystery work was El triple robo de Bellamore (1903; the triple robbery of Bellamore). Some of these early works did, however, use satire to question the validity of some norms in this early form of novelas de enigma. For example, Edward Ladislao Holmberg’s (1852-1937) La bolsa de huesos (1896; the bag of bones) parodies the police system in Argentina by presenting a detective-narrator who faces punishment for independently solving the crime outside of the normal Argentine judicial system.

During the 1940’s and 1950’s, Argentine authors began writing hard-hitting and sociopolitically critical mystery works. One of the most recognized authors in this area is Leonardo Castellani (1896-1980). His La mosca de oro(1938) was one of the first Latin American mystery works not only to describe vividly the regional peoples and culture but also to expose a society that lacked honest systems of justice. Castellani stands out among his contemporary writers with his caustic renderings of the structure of Argentine society.

Many writers who followed Castellani’s lead in criticizing Argentine society did so in response to observation of the negative effects of the populist Perónist movement in Argentina from 1946 to 1955. This movement was unique to Argentina. The populist hero Juan Perón, with his famous first wife, Eva Perón, led an anti-elitist workers movement that threatened many in Argentina’s upper classes, which included many authors and their families. Other writers whose works have contained specific critiques of the Perónist movement include Enrique Anderson Imbert (1920-2000), the author of El general hace un lindo cadáver (1956; the general makes a lovely corpse); David Viñas (1929-    ), author of Chico grande (1953; big Chico); Manuel Peyrou (1902-1974), the author of El estruendo de las rosas (1948; the thunder of the roses); and Jorge Luis Borges, the author of Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi (1942; Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, 1981).

The boom of the novela negra, or hard-boiled detective novel, in the River Plate region began during the 1970’s and continued into the twenty-first century. Argentina’s last military government collapsed in 1983 and was followed by a series of civilian governments that left Argentina with an exorbitant foreign debt that led to the freezing of bank accounts and the collapse of much of the economy. In 2001, President Fernando de la Rua was forced to flee his presidential palace by helicopter to escape a mob, and police brutally suppressed the uprising. Many mystery writers used Argentina’s deteriorating situation as a backdrop in their literary works.

En la estela de un sequestro (1977; in the wake of a kidnapping) by María Angélica Bosco (1917-    ) details problematic interpersonal relationships, especially among family members. The novel’s plot involves a wealthy doctor who is kidnapped while driving in the Paraná River Delta and held for ransom. The work clearly presents an analogy to the Argentine economic situation, in which economic status is based upon personal or political power. The story also critiques the unequal division of justice according to economic status.

Another Argentine writer, Juan Sasturain (1945-  ), writes short mystery stories as well as novelas negras. In Versión de un relato de Hamlet (2001; version of a Hamlet story), he presents a brutal exposé of the consequences of Argentina’s military dictatorships, which were replaced by inept regimes that squandered the nation’s wealth by vaguely following neoconservative global economic strategies.

Mexico

A prominent characteristic of Mexican mystery literature, especially during the 1920’s to 1950’s, its formative years, has been its strong linkage to nationalist themes. Although the formative period produced the typical whodunit form of novelas de enigma, Mexican writers did not use foreign settings or foreign pen names to make their works more acceptable to their readers. Translated North American and European works were readily available to Mexico’s many mystery fiction fans, but Mexican writers themselves used local settings for their backdrops. Antonio Helú (1900-1972) is a good example of an early Mexican mystery writer. Many of his short, satirical stories deal with class conflict and the antipathy of the poor toward the affluent.

Another example of a Mexican writer who obliquely criticizes the social realities is José Martínez de la Vega (1908-1954). His popular collection of short stories, Péter Pérez, detective de Peralvillo y anexas (1952), humorously attacks Mexico’s long-ruling political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). However, it stops short of actually defying that powerful political force. Detective Pérez is presented as a bumbling but honest cop working among greedy political autocrats.

By the 1980’s, Mexican mystery writers had embraced the novela negra. In Mexico, these works tend to critique two main subjects: PRI, the political party that corruptly ruled the country for more than forty years, and drug-trafficking gangsters. Paco Ignacio Taibo II wrote a hybrid mystery novel combining the novela negra with an almost journalistic style of writing that directly confronts issues of honesty, values, and repression in Mexico City following the government’s massacre of students and others during the country’s 1968 protest movement. His novel, Heroes convocados: Manual para la toma del poder (1982; Calling All Heroes: A Manual for Taking Power, 1990), won the Grijalbo Prize. All of Taibo’s many works confront the corrupt sociopolitical system.

Another Mexican writer, Francisco José Amparán (1957-    ), has exposed the most recent threat to social order and economic stability in Mexico: the smuggling of narcotics into the United States. His novel Otras caras de paraíso (1995; other faces of paradise) involves a search for a missing young girl but leaves readers with a macabre vision of life in the Mexican drug underworld.

Cuba

Imported and translated novelas de enigma were long readily available in Cuba, but Cuban writers produced no original mystery fiction until 1971. In that year, Ignacio Cárdenas Acuña published Enigma para um domingo (1971; enigma for a Sunday). Since then, original detective works have proliferated in Cuba. However, due to strict government censorship controls, all Cuban mystery works have been required to conform to the government’s socialist goals. The works must not only entertain, but also educate the public. It is therefore not surprising that the dominant theme in Cuban mystery fiction has been struggles against social inequality and correction of past vices.

Cuban mystery works differ from those of other regions in that they are set in a well-controlled society in which all citizens are identified and watched. This lack of anonymity makes it theoretically impossible for criminals to commit crimes without being prosecuted. Moreover, investigators cannot be amateurs; they must be members of police teams or other judicial investigative bodies, whose members are, without question, honest and held responsible by their fellow socialist peers. All investigations are team efforts, and one member cannot lead an investigation independently. Under these restrictions, Cuban mysteries cannot employ such suspense-building genre gimmicks as false inspectors and corrupt police. Acuña’s Enigma para un domingo had to use prerevolution Cuba as its setting in order to criticize the corruption of capitalist systems.

Another example of the limited scope of Cuban works is La ronda de los rubiés (1973; the round of the rubies) by Armando Cristõbal Pérez (1938-    ). This work is situated in Cuba and details the counterrevolutionary actions of a group that plans to use a ruby necklace to purchase an illegal escape from Cuba. Cuentos para una noche lluviosa (1986; tales for a rainy night), a collection of short mystery novels by Bertha Recio Tenorio (1950-    ), detailed how crimes from petty theft to murder are solved in a cooperative effort by vigilant neighbors and honest police teamwork. Each story presents antirevolutionary crimes based upon a lack of moral turpitude.

Brazil

Mystery fiction has enjoyed at least modest popularity in Brazil since the 1930’s. As in many Latin American nations, most of the mysteries that Brazilians read were translations of books imported from the United States and Europe. The relatively few original Brazilian works were written in the formulaic novela de enigma style. Considered a somewhat disreputable form of literature in Brazil, mystery works received little attention from the literary establishment until much later than in most of Latin America.

The overwhelming use of satire, parody, and farce in Brazilian works has set them apart from works from other Latin American regions. The very first Brazilian detective novel is an example. Cowritten by Afrânio Peixoto (1876-1947), Henrique Maximiniano Coelho (1864-1934), and José Joaquim de Campos Medeiros e Albuquerque (1867-1934), “O Mystério” (1920; the mystery) satirizes Brazilian culture by presenting investigators and police who aggressively round up any and all citizens who might vaguely know anything about a crime, regardless of necessity. However, the book depicts the investigators behind these rights violations as more inept than corrupt. Nevertheless, the novel foreshadowed the emergence of the novela negra in Brazil during the 1970’s.

True, hard-hitting detective novels finally appeared in Brazil during the 1970’s. In addition to the very violent crimes and judicial corruption depicted in these works, the works also embrace a sardonic attitude toward class conflict and a dehumanized Brazilian populace. Parodies of Brazilian life can also be observed in the twenty-first century works of Luiz Alfredo Garcia Roza (1936). For example, his Achados e perdidos (1998; December Heat, 2003) contains clear references to a dehumanized society of Rio de Janeiro that includes the burning alive of a child. Garcia Roza satirizes the local police force by having all witnesses interviewed by a detective pledge not to mention anything about the detective’s investigation to other members of the police. In a sharp contrast to the mystery fiction of Cuba, Brazilian witnesses are reluctant to provide any information, and the information they do provide is inherently suspect.

Bibliography

Biron, Rebecca E. Murder and Masculinity: Violent Fictions of Twentieth Century Latin America. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000. Analysis of various Latin American mystery works and authors, with an emphasis on masculinity and machismo features found in the works. Indexed.

Braham, Persephone. Crimes Against the State, Crimes Against Persons: Detective Fiction in Cuba and Mexico. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Compares and contrasts detective fiction in Cuba and Mexico. Evaluates various works in the context of the globalization of national economies. Indexed.

Craig-Odders, Renee W., ed. Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Detective Fiction. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. Collection of essays on a large number of Latin American authors of detective works with astute observations on the sociopolitical conditions of the environments in which the works are located. Especially useful for feminist observations. Indexed.

Lockhart, Darrell B., ed. Latin American Mystery Writers. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. This alphabetically arranged guide covers the most popular Latin American mystery writers. Each entry offers basic author information and brief descriptions of their most notable works. Indexed.

Simpson, Amelia S. Detective Fiction from Latin America. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990. General exploration of Latin American mystery novels from a historical and geopolitical viewpoint. Important Latin American mystery fiction authors’ works are also briefly covered. Illustrated and indexed.

Stavans, Ilan. Antiheroes: Mexico and Its Detective Novel. Translated by Jesse H. Lytle and Jennifer A. Mattson. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997. Catalog of Mexican mystery fiction writers and the techniques they use to critique Mexican sociopolitical realities, with an emphasis on parody and satire. Indexed.

Yates, Donald, ed. Latin Blood: The Best Crime and Detective Stories of South America. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. Useful collection of early Latin American mystery fiction. The majority of the short stories are in the novela de enigma style, but some of the early novela negra works are represented.