Literary Movements
Discover the main literary movements
1960s
Sestigers
South Africa
Generation of Afrikaans writers in the 60s who modernized Afrikaans literature, introducing experimentalism and critique of apartheid.
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.
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.
1965–1975
Black Arts Movement
USA
African-American cultural movement of affirmation of black identity; Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez in poetry.
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.
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.
1975–1977
Infrarealism
Mexico
Mexican avant-garde poetic movement founded by Roberto Bolaño and Mario Santiago; rupture with the literary establishment and valorization of the marginal.
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.
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.
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.
1960s–present
Neobaroque
Latin America / Europe
Contemporary return to baroque exuberance, complexity, and artifice; Severo Sarduy theorized this current in Latin American literature.
1970–present
Armorial Movement
Brazil
Brazilian cultural movement by Ariano Suassuna that seeks erudite art rooted in the popular culture of the Northeast.
1970s–present
Marginal Literature
Brazil
Literary production from Brazilian peripheries by authors from the margins; Ferréz and other writers from the margins assert experiences excluded from canonical literature.
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.
1983–1990s
The Other Sentimentality
Spain
Granada Spanish poetic movement for the renewal of love lyrics with critical consciousness and historical materialism; Luis García Montero.
1945–1950s
Postism
Spain
Spanish post-war avant-garde combining humor, ludism, and formal experimentation as a response to surrealism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1980s–1990s
Transgressive fiction
USA
Literary movement that explores taboos, violence, and marginality in a provocative way; Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis are references.
1980s–present
Slam poetry / Spoken word
USA / Global
Poetic form of competitive oral performance born in Chicago; values voice, rhythm, and political and social engagement.
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.
1990s–present
Afrofuturism
USA / Global
Cultural and literary movement combining science fiction, fantasy, and African-American perspectives; explores alternative futures from Black identities.
1990s–present
Decolonial literature
Global / Latin America
Critical and literary current that questions colonial legacies in culture and literature; articulates historically silenced voices and perspectives.
1960s–present
Literary Postmodernism
USA / Europe
Literary current that questions grand narratives, uses metafiction, intertextuality, and irony; Pynchon, DeLillo, Calvino, and Perec are references.
1977–present
Autofiction
France / Global
Hybrid literary genre that combines autobiography and fiction; Serge Doubrovsky coined the term, and authors like Karl Ove Knausgård have popularized the form.
1980s–present
New Sincerity
USA
Postmodern reaction to irony and cynicism; values genuine feeling and emotional commitment; David Foster Wallace is its most associated figure.
2001–present
Flarf poetry
USA
American poetic movement that uses internet research and low-quality material to create deliberately absurd and provocative poetry.
2000s–present
Conceptual writing
USA / Global
Current that applies conceptual strategies to literary writing, such as the transition and reprocessing of existing texts; Kenneth Goldsmith is the central figure.
1990s–present
Contemporary literature
Global
Contemporary, plural, and globalized literary production, without a dominant school; marked by diversity of voices, hybrid genres, and digital circulation.
1990s–present
Ecopoetry
Global
Poetic movement that places ecology and the relationship with nature at the center of writing; literary response to contemporary environmental crises.
1980s–present
Diaspora literature
Global
Set of literatures produced by diasporic communities; explores identity, belonging, exile, and cultural hybridity; Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chimamanda Adichie.
27th–6th century BC
Sumerian and Akkadian poetry
Mesopotamia
Oldest poetic tradition in the world; includes the Epic of Gilgamesh, hymns to deities, and laments; written in cuneiform in Sumerian and Akkadian languages.
26th–4th century BC
Ancient Egyptian poetry
Ancient Egypt
Egyptian poetic tradition including hymns to gods, funerary texts like the Book of the Dead, and love poetry from the New Kingdom; documented on papyri and temple walls.
3rd–1st century BC
Hellenistic poetry
Alexandria / Greece
Poetic school flourishing in Alexandria under the Ptolemies; Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius of Rhodes cultivated learned, bucolic, and epic forms of great formal refinement.
2nd–7th cent.
Late Latin and Christian poetry
Roman Empire / Europe
Latin poetry from the period of imperial decline and the rise of Christianity; includes liturgical hymns, patristic poetry, and authors such as Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Venantius Fortunatus.
9th–13th centuries
Muwashshah and Zajal
Al-Andalus
Strophic poetic forms born in Al-Andalus of great importance to medieval Iberian lyric poetry; the muwashshah is learned and in Arabic or Hebrew, the zajal is popular and dialectal; Ibn Quzman is the greatest name of zajal.