Editing Puerto Rico (section)

===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 and in 1647 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>

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. [[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 U.S. 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>