Culture

Northern Chile was an important centre of culture in the medieval and early modern Inca Empire. Afterwards, their culture was dominated by the Spanish during the Colonial and early Republican period. Other European influences, primarily English and French, began in the 19th century and have continued until today, as in other Western societies.

Music

The national dance is the cueca (short for zamacueca) and first appeared in 1824. Another form of traditional Chilean song is the tonada. Arising from music imported by the Spanish colonists, it is distinguished from the cueca by an intermediate melodic section and a more prominent melody.

In the mid-1960s native musical forms were revitalised by the Parra family with the Nueva Canción Chilena, which became associated with political activism and reformers like Chilean socialist Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity government. Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara, Los Jaivas, Inti-Illimani, Illapu and Quilapayún are performers of this music. During the military rule in the 1970s, all forms of public expression contrary to the junta were repressed, and protest songs, which were played and circulated in a clandestine manner. In the late 1980s and after the return of democracy in the 1990s, new musical bands like La Ley, Los Tres and Los Prisioneros, began to appear.

Literature

Chileans call their country país de poetas 'land of poets'. Gabriela Mistral was the first Chilean to win a Nobel Prize for Literature (1945). Chile's most famous poet, however, is Pablo Neruda, who also won the Nobel Prize (1971) and is world-renowned for his extensive library of works on romance, nature and politics. His three highly individualistic homes, located in Isla Negra, Santiago and Valparaíso are popular tourist destinations.

The major novelist and short story writer of the 20th century was probably Manuel Rojas, although not as well known outside of the country. Isabel Allende, another novelist, has achieved worldwide success with her stories of magic realism in Latin America, probably reaching a larger audience than any other Chilean prose writer. Jorge Edwards, José Donoso, Miguel Serrano and Roberto Bolaño are also notable novelists.

National Symbols

The national flower is the copihue (Lapageria rosea, Chilean bellflower), which grows in the woods of southern Chile.

The coat of arms depicts the two national animals: the condor (Vultur gryphus, a very large bird that lives in the mountains) and the huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus, an endangered white tail deer). It also has the legend Por la razón o la fuerza (By right or might or By reason or by force).