Why and for What Purpose Do Latin American Fiction Writers Travel? Silviano Santiago’s Viagem ao México and The Roots and Labyrinths of Latin America

Abstract

As fiction, “Páramo” was light-years ahead of the two dreadful novels written by Brazilians and set in Mexico, which we briefly mentioned in “First Undercurrents” (Affonso Celso’s Lupe) and in the chapter dedicated to Érico Veríssimo’s México—História duma Viagem (Vianna Moog’s Tóia).¹ But it is typical of Guimarães Rosa’s intricate baroque games of mirrors that his homage to Juan Rulfo was a short story set in Colombia, not in Mexico. The great Mexican novel in Brazilian literature was to be written in 1995 by Silviano Santiago, a fellow mineiro (born in the the state of Minas Gerais as was Guimarães Rosa).