Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos: the magazine that, at almost 80 years old, unites Spanish literature

The Spanish magazine Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos was founded in 1948 and, at nearly 80 years old, seeks to break down any literary barriers between Spanish-speaking countries , without cultural nationalism, often highlighting "rare" and forgotten authors , explains its director, Javier Serena.

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"I think it's the only space where we talk about literature written in Spanish without considering the authors' origins and simply talking about literature that is generally written in Spanish," says Serena, who participated in the Centroamérica Cuenta festival in Guatemala, in a virtual interview.

Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos emerged in 1948 as a response by Franco to Cuadernos Americanos , a magazine created in Mexico by Republican exiles, and since then, with the different imprints left by its directors, including some iconic ones like the poet Luis Rosales, it has been a space "of connection with Latin American literature and culture," says writer Serena.

And, he adds, "contrary to what it may seem," especially due to the effect of the so-called Latin American boom, there is "a great lack of knowledge between Latin American and Spanish literature , and also within Latin American literature."

" These are literatures that aren't entirely well communicated ; books travel poorly, and books and authors still travel poorly today, and it's a magazine that has the perspective of talking about Spanish literature without cultural nationalism. I think that's very important," he insists.

"First, because it's a magazine where in Spain we're making reference to authors from Latin America , who could be relevant there, but here often aren't even published, or aren't known, and we're also creating space for very good independent publishers from Argentina, Mexico or Chile , who don't distribute here or want to distribute, and there are many trying to make that path," he explains.

And the thing is, "as a reader, I have never felt a barrier to anything written in Spanish. I have felt more curiosity than anything else, and yet, it seems to me that both because of the cultural nationalist policies of each country and because of the publishing markets, there has been a somewhat artificial border that has made readers live as if in a bubble, (when) the natural thing would be to live in an ecosystem of literature written in Spanish," he says.

Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos is a monthly magazine of almost 100 pages , whose only permanent staff member is its director, who coordinates each issue with the support of external collaborators, many of them renowned writers, such as the Spaniard Enrique Vila-Matas or the Mexican Juan Villoro.

"The good thing about the journal is that it's a highly valued space for authors (...) who find it a kinship space," says Serena. Furthermore, she emphasizes, " it's not a closed journal in the sense that it doesn't try to expel anyone or generate scholarship that isn't accessible. In fact, it's a little less academic today than it was a few years ago."

It also goes a bit "against the grain," he acknowledges, because while the trend is to give the reader more digestible formats, "short, bite-sized, quick things," the main interview in each issue spans between 10 and 12 pages.

And its status as a Spanish public media outlet "allows the magazine to have a more natural rhythm," without being governed by market rules .

Referring to the "aspect of geography in Spanish," Serena explains, as she already explained in an editorial in the magazine, that it is not defined.

"Central America, the Río de la Plata, in short, Spain, Mexico and Buenos Aires as publishing centers, there is no completely defined geography (...) and I said that this has had a cultural advantage which is the diversity compared to other more structured cultural markets such as the North American one, (where) I think they tend to generate a kind of more predictable canon and that ends up somewhat exhausting creativity," he says.

And he adds that the Latin American and Spanish markets "have been a somewhat anarchic market, generating many authors and many voices, and well, small cultural dissents."

"I think, for example, of the phenomenon (...) of the 'weirdos of Montevideo', which is a group of authors –Mario Levrero, Felisberto Hernández, Armonía Somers–, that emerges from a somewhat closed ecosystem where a little madness and a creativity very different from what is happening at that time in Spain or Mexico originate," he argues.

"So," he continues, "the fact that there isn't a market that can structure it has the advantage of more creativity , and that disorder still needs to be maintained. You just have to be curious to investigate what's happening."

Serena emphasizes that during his time as director of Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, he tried to "move a bit away from the most canonical and central literature ," something that can help prevent the oversights of the past from being repeated.

And he names the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, "an outcast" for whom the arrival of success almost coincided with his sudden death , at the age of 50, or the now universal Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, who "was a man who at the age of 60 was unknown to anyone outside of Buenos Aires" and became known with his already finished work.

Thus, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos is vindicating, for example, authors who were little read, or those "rare" ones who emerge because "literary creation always arises from a certain rejection of immediate tradition."

"It seems to me that a public journal, which has the freedom not to be subject, like supplements, to other constraints, has the obligation to look where others aren't looking , perhaps leaving aside the phenomena and focusing on those who have been in second place," he argues.