Antonio Skármeta

Reviewed by Rafael Ocasio, Agnes Scott Coll., Decatur, GA -- Críticas, 7/15/2008

(U.S., 2007) color. Spanish (English subtitles). 25 mins. Films Media Group. 2007. $89.95. DVD. DOCUMENTARY

In this documentary, Chilean novelist Antonio Skármeta (b.1940), best known for the novel El cartero de Neruda (1985), which inspired the acclaimed film Il Postino (The Postman, 1994), speaks frankly about his works and about contemporary Chilean society. The dynamic Skármeta takes s the viewer through a changing society that is still struggling with issues dating from the end of General Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990. Speaking about his need to produce literature, “a poetic impulse from my soul,” Skármeta welcomes the arrival of a “truly marvelous” new generation of writers in Chile, who are more literate and who read more than previous generations. Today, Chileans prefer public readings by authors, in well-attended events that Skármeta compares with a return to primitive and tribal gatherings. His work is thus “intense moments of communication of matters of concern to me and to the society in which I live.” He also speaks in detail about his latest work (Areté, 1999), La boda del poeta (“The Poet’s Wedding”), based on an anecdote told to him by his immigrant parents and addressing how immigrants “create myths in order to maintain a continuity.” An in-depth introduction to Skármeta’s aesthetics; recommended for academic libraries and large collections on contemporary Latin American literature and/or politics.