¡Bienvenidos al Boletín de Primavera de 2026!

The skies over Venezuela have been abuzz with helicopters, escorting television documentary crews in and deposed dictators out. 

Venezuela’s predicament has given us some intriguing storylines to develop in this edition: how Venezuela’s future might come down to a rivalry over the Nobel Peace Prize and a contest between two leading women [in Spanish]; why China (diplomatically) and the US (militarily) both deployed ‘on the ground’ in  Caracas in the final hours of the Maduro dictatorship; and how Michael Palin’s reflections on Venezuela’s ‘inexplicable’ decline led him unwittingly into García Márquez territory, encountering some great sights and curious locals along the way.    

Elsewhere in Latin America we celebrate Buenos Aires’ multi-faceted personality through two distinct perspectives on the city – one looking at the ever-controversial city-centre shantytown Villa 31 [in Spanish], the other plugging into the city’s cultural heritage as reflected in Buenos Aires today.

On the other side of the cordillera, we re-visit the cueca sola dance, used under the Pinochet dictatorship to protest and grieve over disappeared friends and relatives – and made famous beyond Chile’s borders through Sting’s They dance alone / Ellas danzan solas.

Richard Gott, a friend of this publication, would have loved to read the articles mentioned above. We look at his audacious life – from Winchester to western imperialism, García Márquez to The Guardian and Che to Chávez – as one of the UK’s most committed Latin Americanists, and a prolific writer on the region.

Back in Spain, the year-long commemoration of 50 years since the end of Franco is now over – but what of the monarchy that followed, and how important was it to securing the freedom just celebrated?  We look at the Bourbons’ first fifty years back  on the throne.

Last year marked the centenary of Spanish writer Ana María Matute’s birth: we look at her legacy [in Spanish], and analyse two of her short stories (La conciencia [in Spanish] and Pecado de omisión).

We also dip into a different type of cultural medium as we discover how Spanish and Latin American history and folklore have inspired the creators of tabletop role-playing games in the Spanish-speaking world.

In this edition we also offer a Bulletin Behind-the-Scenes insight into some of the thinking that goes into preparing an edition of this free, online resource, which is read on every continent, and is written by and for enthusiasts at all stages of their exploration of the language and culture of the Spanish-speaking world.  Might you like to join our team?

Please see the Guidelines tab if you would like to write for us.  Articles for our Summer edition should please reach us by 25 April 2026.

¡Disfruten!