Latin American collection

Overview

The Latin American printed collection covers material published in 18 countries spanning the length of the continent. These are, in geographical order from North to South: Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile.

The Library also holds material from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba which are part of our rich Caribbean collections. We also have a particular interest in diasporic and transnational communities, including the Latin American diaspora in the UK. The strong continent-wide focus of our collections means that we are able to support research on the interconnected histories, present and future, of Latin America, as well as country-specific interests.

Early collections

The collection is rich in historic documents relating to Liberalism in the Americas, the wars of independence, nation building and British involvement in all these areas during the 19th century. We have a substantial collection of early printed books relating to colonial missionary materials, including the oldest book published in the Americas, Juan de Zumárraga, (Archbishop of Mexico), Doctrina breve muy provechosa de las cosas que pertenecen a la fe católica y a nuestra cristiandad en estilo llano para común inteligencia. G.L. (Mexico, 1543; BL Shelfmark: C.37.e.8). 

Contemporary collections

The Library actively collects printed material from across the region and has particularly strong collections of contemporary material from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. In addition to academic works, we focus on independent publishing, artists’ books, political ephemera and zines, as well as forms of publishing which have emerged from Latin America, namely cartonera and cordeis.

Languages covered

Spanish, Portuguese, Indigenous languages and English. Some of the Indigenous languages represented in the collection include Nahuatl, Zapotec, Quechua / Quichua / Kichwa, Guarani, and Mapudungun. This represents a snapshot of published work by Indigenous peoples in the collections, and we acknowledge that this is also only a fraction of the languages indigenous to Abya Yala.