19 Spanish-American Literature Titles That Have Been Adapted for Film

Literature is a permanent source of inspiration for cinema. Several texts served as the basis for films, with greater and lesser fidelity in relation to the original source, and with a diversity of results when it comes to capturing the richness of the relationship between a book and the imagination of those who read it on an audiovisual level.

O awesome.club compiled some works by Hispanic-American authors that were taken to the big screen — in some cases, even by the Hollywood industry.

The novel by the Colombian writer, published in 1986, was taken to the cinema 21 years later in an American production starring the Spaniard Javier Bardem. Shakira participated in the soundtrack with the songs Hay Amores and farewellthe last Golden Globe nominee for “best original song”.

However, this wasn’t the Nobel Prize winner’s first work to make it to the big screen. Nobody Writes to the Colonel and The Widow of Montiel are other titles from a long list, whose latest incorporation is Netflix’s announcement of the adaptation of One hundred years of Solitude to the platform.

Eduardo Sacheri published his book in 2005 and collaborated with director Juan José Campanella in adapting the script for The Secret of Your Eyeswinner of the Oscar for “best foreign language film” in 2010. Hollywood made its own version with a luxury cast: Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor, among other actors.

sacheri also wrote Papers in the Wind, work that was taken to the cinema in 2015.

Chilean Isabel Allende’s first novel hit bookstores in 1982 and has been translated into several languages. Eleven years later, it received its film adaptation, starring Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas. The story of the Trueba family spanning four generations has also been adapted for the stage and has been staged in Latin American countries and in the United States.

Mexican Laura Esquivel published the book in 1989, a story that combines love and cooking during the country’s revolution, in the first decades of the 20th century. Her compatriot, director Alfonso Arau, took her to the cinema with great international success, obtaining nominations for the Golden Globe, the Goya and BAFTA Awards, among others.

The violence of drug trafficking in which Medellín was immersed in the 1990s is portrayed by the Colombian Vallejo in the novel published in 1994. Five years later, the film Our Lady of Assassins, which put some of the issues addressed in the book in audiovisual format: the hired killer, drugs and popular religiosity. The joint production between Colombian and French filmmakers resulted in the best Latin American film at the Venice Film Festival, among other distinctions.

A student is faced with a mysterious murder shortly after arriving at the University of Oxford, and embarks along with a professor on an adventure to try to solve it. This is the premise of the novel by Argentine writer Guillermo Martínez, which combines elements of crime literature with others from mathematics, logic and philosophy.

The book published in 2003 was taken to the cinema by director Alex de la Iglesia, in English, under the title Enigmas of a Crime🇧🇷 The production starred Elijah Wood and John Hurt, and won three Goya Awards.

The Chilean author published this short novel in 1985, as a continuation of a homonymous film that he had scripted and directed two years earlier. This fiction tells the funny relationship between the poet Pablo Neruda and a postman from Isla Negra, the city where the Nobel Prize winner had a house, where he took refuge to write.

Italian cinema made its own adaptation of the story with The Postman and the Poet, which moves the setting to the island of Salina. The film received 25 international awards and five Oscar nominations.

A prisoner for political reasons and another accused of seducing a child live in the same cell and form a friendship, despite their very different personalities. This could be the summary of the novel by Argentine Manuel Puig, which, in fact, is much deeper. It was taken to the cinema in a Brazilian-American production starring Raul Julia, William Hurt and Sônia Braga. It also gave rise to a musical that triumphed on Broadway, and in Brazil featured Miguel Falabella, Tuca Andrada and Cláudia Raia.

The work of the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa had two cinematographic versions. The first was launched in 1975, two years after the book was released, in which the Nobel Prize winner himself was co-director. The second, launched in 1999, was directed by Francisco José Lombardi, who had already adapted The City and the Dogsfirst novel by Vargas Llosa.

The Spanish author’s mystery-adventure novel inspired the film The Last Portal, by director Roman Polanski. The production, starring Johnny Depp, focuses on one of the cases that the book investigates, referring to the search for books linked to the Devil. The collection about The Adventures of Captain Alatriste and The King’s Gold are other writings by Pérez-Reverte that have been represented on the big screen.

The Uruguayan writer published the novel in 1960, in which he tells the story of a widower, his relationship with his children and work, and the emergence of a new love. The story reached the big screen in 1974, being the first Argentine production and the second South American to be nominated for an Oscar for “best foreign film”. In 2003 another version was made, this time Mexican.

Discipline and transgression in a traditional secondary school in Buenos Aires, from the point of view of a governess, is, in general terms, the plot of this novel by Martín Kohan, which takes place during the historical context of the Malvinas War, which took place in 1982 . It was taken to the cinema with the title The Invisible Eyea film that participated in the Cannes Film Festival and was awarded at Sundance.

The book by Spaniard Javier Cercas is about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and its memory of the present, in a novel that intertwines fiction and reality. Published in 2001, it was adapted for film in an eponymous film released two years later, directed by David Trueba. The first work of Cercas, El Movilwas also taken to the cinema with the title The author🇧🇷

The work by the Argentine Pedro Mairal won the Clarin Romance Prize in 1998, and was adapted for cinema two years later, in a co-production with France, Holland and Italy, starring Cecilia Roth and Tomás Fonzi. The romance the uruguayanby the same author, will soon be taken to the big screen.

The Mexican Octavio Paz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, published in 1982 this literary and historical essay on the life of Sóror Juana Inés de la Cruz. Inspired by this work, in 1990 the Argentine film I’m the Worst of Alldirected by María Luisa Bemberg, which focuses on the last years of the nun known as the tenth muse.

The book by the Argentinean Antonio Di Benedetto focuses on the story of an official of the Spanish crown at the end of the 18th century, who is waiting for a letter from the king to remove him from the border post where he is installed and transfer him to Buenos Aires. Director Lucrecia Martel took the story to the cinema in 2017, and the film was selected by various means, such as the New York Times, among the best of that year. In the cast, the Brazilian actor Matheus Nachtergaele.

In 1993, Spanish playwright Antonio Gala published this novel about a woman who leaves behind a marriage she finds boring to embark on an adventure with a guide she meets during a trip to Istanbul. Ana Belén embodies the protagonist in the film version, which was a great success and won two Goya awards.

The first and only novel published in his lifetime by the Cuban José Lezama Lima talks about the childhood and formation of the poet José Cemí. Based on this 1966 text, celebrated by writers such as Octavio Paz and Julio Cortázar, the film El Viajero Inmóvilby Director Tomas Piard, released in 2008.

Did you know all the books and movies on our list? Are there any novels you’ve read that you’d like to see made into a movie? Tell us in the comments section.