Fausto is one of the best-loved works in Argentine literature. But it was the poem El gaucho Martín Fierro (1872; The Departure of Martin Fierro, 1935) by José Hernández that established the gaucho as a national genre in Argentine literature. Many people consider Martín Fierro the national epic of Argentina. In the sociological essay Facundo (1845; translated 1868), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento studies how the rural life of the Argentine Pampas helped shape the national character. While Sarmiento sympathizes aesthetically and emotionally with the gaucho, he presents a program for national reconstruction through education, European immigration, and technical progress. In the 20th century the gaucho reappears as the protagonist of the novel Don Segundo Sombra (1926; translated as Don Segundo Sombra, Shadows on the Pampas, 1935), by Ricardo Güiraldes.

Other notable Argentine writings from the 20th century include Rayuela (1963; Hopscotch, 1966), a novel by Julio Cortázar that many consider the most important Latin American novel of the 1960s; El beso de la mujer araña (1976; translated as Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1979), a novel by Manuel Puig that was made into a popular motion picture (Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1985); and the stories of Ernesto Sábato. Eduardo Mallea, a novelist who wrote on existentialist themes, and Jorge Luis Borges, internationally renowned for his short stories, were major literary figures of the late 20th century. The best-known Argentine poet is Leopoldo Lugones, who wrote both symbolist and naturalist verse.

Contemporary writers include Guillermo Martínez, who wrote Infierno Grande (1989), a collection of short stories; Marcos Aguinis, who explored Argentina and Germany in the 1930s in La matriz del infierno (1997); and Alicia Steimberg, who chronicled a woman searching for her identity in Cuando digo Magdalena (1992; translated as Call Me Magdalena, 2001). Encarta