Literary Movements

1970s–1980s

Misty Poets

China

Chinese post-Cultural Revolution poetic movement using metaphor and ambiguity to resist socialist realism; Bei Dao and Shu Ting are central figures.

1970–present

Armorial Movement

Brazil

Brazilian cultural movement by Ariano Suassuna that seeks erudite art rooted in the popular culture of the Northeast.

1970

Novísimos

Spain

Generation of Spanish poets from Castellet's anthology (1970); influenced by mass culture, cinema, and avant-garde movements; Pere Gimferrer and Leopoldo María Panero.

1969–present

Native American Renaissance

USA / Canada

Flourishing of Native American literature from the 70s onwards; N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Sherman Alexie.

1967–1969

Tropicalism

Brazil

Brazilian cultural movement of fusion between Brazilian musical and literary tradition and international avant-gardes; Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil in music, Torquato Neto in poetry.

1965–1975

Black Arts Movement

USA

African-American cultural movement of affirmation of black identity; Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez in poetry.

1960s–present

Literary Postmodernism

USA / Europe

Literary current that questions grand narratives, uses metafiction, intertextuality, and irony; Pynchon, DeLillo, Calvino, and Perec are references.

1960s–present

Neobaroque

Latin America / Europe

Contemporary return to baroque exuberance, complexity, and artifice; Severo Sarduy theorized this current in Latin American literature.

1960s–1970s

Latin American Boom

Latin America

Editorial and literary phenomenon that projected Latin American fiction internationally; García Márquez, Cortázar, Vargas Llosa and Fuentes are its protagonists.

1960s

Generation of '60 (Latin America)

Latin America

Latin American poetic generation marked by the Cuban revolution and social movements; influenced by surrealism, the beat, and anti-poetry.

1960s

Sestigers

South Africa

Generation of Afrikaans writers in the 60s who modernized Afrikaans literature, introducing experimentalism and critique of apartheid.

1958–1970s

Nadaism

Colombia

Colombian literary avant-garde of provocation and nihilism; Gonzalo Arango led this movement of rejection of bourgeois values and literary tradition.

1954–present

Antipoetry

Chile

Poetic movement created by Nicanor Parra that subverts lyrical conventions with irony, colloquialism, and black humor; marked influence on contemporary Hispanic poetry.

1950s–present

New African Literature

Africa

Emergence of modern African literatures in European and vernacular languages; Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are fundamental references.

1950s–1970s

Concrete poetry

Brazil / Switzerland / Germany

International poetic movement that explores the visual and sound materiality of language; in Brazil with the Noigandres Group (Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Pignatari).

1950s–1970s

Confessional poetry

USA

American poetic movement of intense autobiographical expression and exposure of the inner life, including trauma, mental illness, and sexuality; Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman.

1950s–1970s

New York School

USA

Group of American poets influenced by abstract expressionism and surrealism; Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch are central figures.

1950s–1970s

Nouveau roman

France

French avant-garde school that eliminated psychological characters and conventional plot in favor of objective description; Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, and Butor.

1950s–1960s

Beat Generation

USA

American counterculture literary movement that rejects conventional values; Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs explore freedom, spirituality, and marginality.

1950s

Black Mountain poets

USA

American poetic school associated with Black Mountain College; Charles Olson, Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan experiment with projective verse and breath rhythm.

1950s

Generation of '50 (Latin America)

Latin America

Generation of Latin American poets who modernized Hispanic lyricism; Ernesto Cardenal, Roberto Fernández Retamar and others.

1950s

Generation of '50 (Spain)

Spain

Generation of Spanish poets of social and testimonial poetry in reaction to the Franco dictatorship; Blas de Otero, Gabriel Celaya and José Hierro.

1950s

Hussards

France

Group of right-wing French writers who opposed Sartrean existentialism; Roger Nimier and Michel Déon cultivated an ironic and elegant style.

1948–1951

CoBrA

Northern Europe

Artistic and literary movement in Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam; spontaneous, expressive, and experimental poetry associated with gestural painting.

1947–1967

Group 47

Germany

Post-war German literary group that brought together the main German-language writers; Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass are its most prominent names.

1945–1950s

Postism

Spain

Spanish post-war avant-garde combining humor, ludism, and formal experimentation as a response to surrealism.

1940s–1990s

Magic realism

Latin America / Global

Literary style that integrates fantastic elements into everyday reality in a natural way; García Márquez is its most famous representative.

1940s–1960s

Literary Existentialism

France / Europe

Literary expression of philosophical existentialism; Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir explore freedom, anguish, and the absurdity of the human condition.

1936–1960s

Progressive Writers' Movement

India / Pakistan

South Asian Marxist-inspired literary movement that produced literature in Urdu, Hindi, and other languages; Faiz Ahmed Faiz is its most celebrated poet.

1930s–present

Southern Gothic

USA

American literary subgenre set in the Southern US; uses the grotesque, decay, and the supernatural to explore issues of race, identity, and history; Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor.

1930s–present

Universalist Regionalism

Brazil / Latin America

Literary current that departs from the regional and particular to reach the universal; João Guimarães Rosa and Grande Sertão as a paradigmatic model.

1930s–1960s

Négritude

France / Antilles / Africa

Literary and philosophical movement of affirmation of African and Afro-descendant identity and culture; Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontran Damas.

1930s–1960s

Neorealism

Portugal / Italy

Literary movement of social and political commitment; in Portugal with Alves Redol and Soeiro Pereira Gomes, in Italy with Pavese and Vittorini.

1930s

Objectivism (poetry)

USA

American poetic school that values the poem as an object and the precision of perception; Louis Zukofsky and George Oppen are its main representatives.

1930s

Thirties Generation

United Kingdom

Generation of left-wing political engagement British poets of the 30s; W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Louis MacNeice are their central figures.

1927–1940

Presencism

Portugal

Portuguese literary movement associated with the magazine Presença (1927–1940); second modernist generation with João Gaspar Simões, Régio, and Casais Monteiro; values psychologism, sincerity, and the work as an expression of the self.

1924–1966

Surrealism

France / Europe

Movement founded by André Breton that explores the unconscious, dreams, and the irrational; profoundly influenced world poetry, including Brazil and Portugal.

1920s–present

Andean social poetry

Peru / Bolivia

Andean poetic current marked by social commitment, denunciation of indigenous oppression, and fusion of Quechua tradition with European forms; César Vallejo is its major precursor, with continuity in Peruvian and Bolivian poets of the 20th and 21st centuries.

1920s–1960s

Jazz poetry

USA

Poetic form that incorporates jazz rhythms, structures, and improvisation; Langston Hughes is its precursor, the Beat Generation continued the tradition.

1920s–1950s

Scottish Renaissance

Scotland

Movement for the revival of Scottish literature in English and Scots; Hugh MacDiarmid is its central figure.