An overview

The period 1946–55 witnessed important changes in the intellectual climate of Argentina. Sur's strategy had always been to blend select cultural movements from abroad with a small group of Argentine writers. This hitherto successful arrangement became increasingly problematic due to international and internal developments. With the end of the war, the review could once again regularly receive contributions from Europe, yet the post-war world raised important questions which could not easily be answered by a small number of like-minded, élite groups. Sartre in particular posed the problem, What is literature? Sur could find no adequate response, since it knew what constituted taste, value and standards: such matters could only be felt, they could not be defined. This made the magazine particularly vulnerable when asked to explain its premises in these years. Sartre was one significant member of an intellectual community which was now less familiar to the magazine: old friends died and were not easily replaced. New tendencies – such as the theatre of Jean Genet – were treated with suspicion. One element of continuity was provided, however, by the persistent struggle against Marxism, with the escalation of the Cold War in these years.