glbtq: an encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture
home
arts
literature
social sciences
special features
discussion
about glbtq
   search
  
 
   Encyclopedia
   Discussion
 
 
   member name
  
   password
  
 
   
   Forgot Your Password?  
   
Not a Member Yet?  
   
JOIN TODAY. IT'S FREE!

 
 
  glbtq Books
  Advertising Opportunities

  Press Kit

  Permissions & Licensing

  Terms of Service

  Privacy Policy

  Copyright

 

 

Special Features Index  

 
Spotlight

Latin American Art and Literature

   
Latin American machismo has contributed to the oppression of GLBT people and limited their expression in the arts. Consequently, Latin American Art by GLBT artists often portrays a desire for both sexual and political liberation.

Although Latin American Literature includes many works that have homoerotic themes or gay and lesbian characters, the sensibilities expressed differ from those found in European and North American Literatures.
 
 

 
Frida Kahlo with Diego Rivera
Frida Kahlo (left) with Diego Rivera

Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), a Cuban novelist, essayist, and poet, was persecuted for his homosexuality by the Castro government he had once championed.

Bisexual Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a masterful exponent of cross-dressing, deliberately using male drag to project power and independence.

Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), a major Latin-American literary figure, included problematic homosexual passages in his two best known novels.

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), a Chilean educator, journalist, feminist, diplomat, and Nobel laureate, celebrated women and motherhood in poems and essays that are frequently homoerotic.

Manuel Puig (1932-1990) included homosexual themes and motifs in a number of his eight novels, and in the best known of them, Kiss of the Spider Woman, homosexual desire is central to the fiction.

Performer and singer Chavela Vargas (b. 1919) became notorious for the eroticism of her performances and for her open expression of lesbian desire.

Luis Zapata (b. 1951) is Mexico's most successful and productive gay writer. Between 1975 and 1990, he published four novels and a novelette in which the main character is either denotatively or connotatively gay.

Nahum B. Zenil (b. 1947) emerged on the international art scene in the 1980s as part of a generation of Mexican artists who were re-examining the artistic traditions of their country. Zenil's art, mostly autobiographical, has consistently acknowledged and utilized his identity as a gay man to define his artistic personality.

Photo Credits: The photograph of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is a portrait by Carl van Vechten and appears courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

 
 
 

 
  Newsletter
 

 
Sign up for glbtq's free newsletter to receive a spotlight on GLBT culture every month.
 

e-mail address



 
privacy policy
 unsubscribe

 
 
 

www.glbtq.com is produced by glbtq, Inc.,
1130 West Adams Street, Chicago, IL   60607 glbtq™ and its logo are trademarks of glbtq, Inc.
This site and its contents Copyright © 2002-2007, glbtq, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
Your use of this site indicates that you accept its Terms of Service.