The first written literary work about the "remote" nation of Chile came to the Library in 1815. It was part of Thomas Jefferson's library, purchased by the Library of Congress after the British burned the collections, then housed in the Capitol, during the War of 1812.
The volume was Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana, an epic poem about the conquest of Chile by a Spanish poet and soldier, first published in 1569.
Historians have said that La Araucana fed the fires of the Chilean independence movement. According to Chilean critic Ren‚ Jara, "The Indians against whom the Spaniards fought in the distant days of the conquest did not yield ... their heroic struggle until the close of 19th century. Ercilla put his name to the base of what could be called Latin America."
Epic and historical ballads became founding genres in Chilean literature. Starting with the first notable Chilean savant of the early independence period, Juan Ega¤a (1768-1836), and on to Andr‚s Bello (1781-1888) -- a Venezuelan who claimed Chile as his adoptive country -- to Alberto Blest Gana (1831-1920), and 20th century giants such as Joaqu¡n Edwards Bello (1887-1968), Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948), Nicanor Parra (1915) and Jos‚ Donoso (1924), the reader will find works by all the important Chilean authors in the Library's collections.
According to noted poet and literary critic Pedro Lastra of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the Library's collection of Chilean literature is "well balanced and representative of all periods of Chilean letters." Mr. Lasta is a contributing editor of the Library's Handbook of Latin American Studies.
The "jewel" in the Chilean literary collection, however, is the unique Gabriela Mistral corpus. Mistral (1889-1957) was the first Latin American to receive a Nobel Prize for literature (1945). She was also a teacher and a renowned diplomat. In addition to books by and about the poet, the Manuscript Division houses her unpublished notebooks and correspondence, among these, letters from her lifelong friend Stefan Zweig, Eduardo Frei Montalva (later President of Chile) and Argentine writer Victoria Ocampo. In addition, the Hispanic Division recorded a reading by Mistral in 1950 for the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, the only one extant, and in 1971 issued a recording of the 18 poems read by the poet, available on cassette in the Madison Building Sales Shop.
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) is arguably the most- quoted poet in the Spanish language. The Library has a complete collection of his works, more than 500 titles -- by and about Neruda, the second Chilean to be awarded the Nobel for literature (1971). During his only visit to the Library, in 1966, and his first visit to Washington since 1944, this writer recorded him reading portions of his epic poem Alturas de Macchu Picchu for the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division has a copy of Neruda's book Espa¤a en el coraz¢n (Spain in the Heart), published in 1938 by colleagues of the poet who were fighting alongside him in the Spanish Civil War.
A nontraditional resource for the study of Luso-Hispanic and Caribbean literature, the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape was begun by the Hispanic Division in 1942. When Mistral recorded for the archive she supported the fledgling program, saying that "this effort to liberate poetry from the limitations of the printed word must be comprehensively undertaken."
To date, 612 authors have been recorded, among them eight Nobel laureates. In addition to Mistral and Neruda, they are: Juan Ram¢n Jim‚nez, Miguel Angel Asturias, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garc¡a M rquez, Vicente Aleixandre, Camilo Jos‚ Cela, and Octavio Paz.
Today, 37 Chilean authors are represented in the archive. They were recorded in various and sometimes faraway places. A husband-and-wife team, Pablo and Winett de Rokha, became in 1944 the first Chileans to record for the archive at the Library of Congress.
In 1958 Francisco Aguilera, who was the Library's specialist in Hispanic culture, traveled to Santiago de Chile on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and recorded 11 writers. Julio Barrenechea, Angel Cruchaga Santa Mar¡a, Diego Dubl‚ Urrutia and Juvencio Valle read selections from their poetry. Eduardo Barrios, Marta Brunet, Joaqu¡n Edwards Bello, Jos‚ Santos Gonz lez Vera, Manuel Rojas and Benjamin Subercaseaux recorded from their novels, and Hern n D¡az Arreta read essays.
In 1961 Aguilera, on another mission sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, recorded an extemporaneous discussion between two Chilean historians, Francisco Antonio Encina and Leopoldo Castedo.
The Library has recorded almost all of the major Chilean writers of the mid-century. Jos‚ Donoso, who is Chile's most distinguished living novelist, was recorded reading from his work in 1976 and 1982. In 1987, while he was a resident scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, this writer recorded Donoso in an interview. Isabel Alegr¡a was recorded at a women writers conference in San Jos‚, Costa Rica, in 1984.
The other Chilean authors represented in the archive are: Fernando Alegr¡a, Isabel Allende, Guillermo Blanco, Enrique Campos Men‚ndez, Humberto Casanueva, Ariel Dorfman, Jorge Edwards (recorded twice), Enrique Gom‚z Correa, Oscar Hahn, Manuel Eduardo Hbner, Pedro Lastra, Enrique Lihn, Juan Mar¡n, Nicanor Parra, Gonzalo Rojas, Antonio Sk rmeta, Fausto Soto, Arturo Torres R¡oseco, Mercedes Valdivieso, Juvencio Valle and Ra£l Zurita.
More than half the authors in the archive were recorded at the Library. The recordings are accompanied by notebooks containing transcriptions of interviews and texts of the selections read. Patrons may listen to the recordings in the Hispanic Division.
The Library also has numerous nonmusical and musical recordings from Chile in the Recorded Sound Reading Room.
