Puerto Rico Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Literature=== {{main|Puerto Rican literature}} [[File:Retrato de EMdeHostos por Francisco Oller.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Eugenio María de Hostos]]]] Puerto Rican literature evolved from the art of [[oral literature|oral story telling]] to its present-day status. Written works by the native islanders of Puerto Rico were prohibited and repressed by the Spanish colonial government. Only those who were commissioned by the Spanish Crown to document the chronological history of the island were allowed to write. [[Diego de Torres Vargas]] was allowed to circumvent this strict prohibition for three reasons: he was a priest, he came from a prosperous Spanish family, and his father was a Sergeant Major in the Spanish Army, who died while defending Puerto Rico from an invasion by the [[Dutch people|Dutch]] armada. In 1647, Torres Vargas wrote {{lang|es|Descripción de la Ciudad e Isla de Puerto Rico}} ("Description of the Island and City of Puerto Rico"). This historical book was the first to make a detailed geographic description of the island.<ref name="DT">{{cite web |url=http://newdeal.feri.org/pr/pr03.htm |title=Puerto Rico in the Great Depression |publisher=Newdeal.feri.org |access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref> The book described all the fruits and commercial establishments of the time, mostly centered in the towns of San Juan and Ponce. The book also listed and described every mine, church, and hospital in the island at the time. The book contained notices on the State and Capital, plus an extensive and erudite bibliography. {{lang|es|Descripción de la Ciudad e Isla de Puerto Rico}} was the first successful attempt at writing a comprehensive history of Puerto Rico.<ref name="DT"/> Some of Puerto Rico's earliest writers were influenced by the teachings of [[Rafael Cordero (educator)|Rafael Cordero]]. Among these was [[Manuel A. Alonso]], the first Puerto Rican writer of notable importance. In 1849 he published {{lang|es|El Gíbaro}}, a collection of verses whose main themes were the poor Puerto Rican country farmer. [[Eugenio María de Hostos]] wrote {{lang|es|La peregrinación de Bayoán}} in 1863, which used [[Bartolomé de las Casas]] as a springboard to reflect on Caribbean identity. After this first novel, Hostos abandoned fiction in favor of the essay which he saw as offering greater possibilities for inspiring social change. In the late 19th century, with the arrival of the first printing press and the founding of the Royal Academy of Belles Letters, Puerto Rican literature began to flourish. The first writers to express their political views in regard to Spanish colonial rule of the island were journalists. After the United States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish–American War and the island was ceded to the Americans as a condition of the Treaty of Paris of 1898, writers and poets began to express their opposition to the new colonial rule by writing about patriotic themes. [[Alejandro Tapia y Rivera]], also known as the Father of Puerto Rican Literature, ushered in a new age of [[historiography]] with the publication of ''The Historical Library of Puerto Rico''. [[Cayetano Coll y Toste]] was another Puerto Rican historian and writer. His work ''The Indo-Antillano Vocabulary'' is valuable in understanding the way the [[Taínos]] lived. [[Manuel Zeno Gandía]] in 1894 wrote {{lang|es|La Charca}} and talked about the harsh life in the remote and mountainous coffee regions in Puerto Rico. [[Antonio S. Pedreira]], described in his work {{lang|es|Insularismo}} the cultural survival of the Puerto Rican identity after the American invasion. With the Puerto Rican diaspora of the 1940s, Puerto Rican literature was greatly influenced by a phenomenon known as the [[Nuyorican Movement]]. Puerto Rican literature continued to flourish, and many Puerto Ricans have since distinguished themselves as authors, journalists, poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists, and screenwriters. The influence of Puerto Rican literature has transcended the boundaries of the island to the United States and the rest of the world. Over the past fifty years, significant writers include [[Ed Vega]] ([[The Lamentable Journey of Omaha Bigelow into the Impenetrable Loisaida Jungle|Omaha Bigelow]]), [[Miguel Piñero]] ([[Short Eyes (play)|Short Eyes]]), [[Piri Thomas]] ([[Down These Mean Streets]]), [[Giannina Braschi]] ([[Yo-Yo Boing!]]), [[Rosario Ferré|Rosario Ferrer]] (Eccentric Neighborhoods). and [[Esmeralda Santiago]] (''[[When I was Puerto Rican]]).''<ref>{{Cite book|last=Acosta Cruz|first=María|title=Dream Nation: Puerto Rican Culture and the Fictions of Independence|year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4619-5820-8|location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |publisher=Rutgers University Press |oclc=871424250}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Zimmerman|first=Marc|title=Defending Their Own in the Cold: The Cultural Turns of U.S. Puerto Ricans|date=2020|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-08558-1|oclc=1142708953}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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