Sur

Sur, prestigious and influential cultural review published in Buenos Aires. Following the advice of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, and with his support as well as that of the American writer Waldo Frank and the Argentine novelist Eduardo Mallea, Victoria Ocampo founded Sur in 1931. It was financed out of Ocampo's personal fortune. Sur contained fiction, poetry, philosophy, criticism, and history. Distinguished men of letters, including Jorge Luis Borges, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, and Ortega y Gasset, served on the editorial board. Writer José Bianco was head of the editorial staff between 1938 and 1961, the most prosperous years for the journal. Highly controversial, Sur was considered elitist and Europeanized by nationalist and leftist writers, such as Pablo Neruda. Writers were not excluded for ideological reasons, however; literary excellence was the requisite for inclusion. Ocampo, a woman of strong opinions, did refuse to publish people she did not like. The journal became the best-known literary magazine in Latin America and served to introduce many foreign writers in translation, including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, Jacques Maritain, Aldous Huxley, André Gide, and Nathalie Sarraute.

Politically, Sur staunchly opposed every form of totalitarianism, both of the Right and the Left. In particular, the editors of Sur took a strong stance against anti-Semitism in Argentina after World War II. Also, the literary journal protested Juan Perón's presidency and celebrated his removal from power in 1955. It was published every month or two until 1971. Since then, special issues have appeared occasionally.

See alsoOcampo, Victoria .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calomarde, Nancy. Políticas y ficciones en Sur, 1945–1955: Las operaciones culturales en los contextos de "peronización." Córdoba, Argentina: Facultad de Filosofía y Human-idades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 2004.

King, John. Sur: A Study of the Argentine Literary Journal and Its Role in the Development of a Culture (1986).

Lafleur, H. R., et al. Las revistas literarias argentinas, 1893–1967 (1968).

Ocampo, Victoria. "Vida de la revista Sur: 35 años de una labor," in Sur, no. 303-305 (November 1966–April 1967): 1-36 (this issue also contains an index for issues 1-302).

Pasternac, Nora. Sur, una revista en la tormenta: Los años de formación, 1931–1944. Buenos Aires: Paradiso, 2002.

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