From Bolívar and Manuela to Frida and Diego, from Selena to Betty and Armando: the love stories Latin America gave the world, and that the world is still discovering.
From Bolívar and Manuela to Frida and Diego, from Selena to Betty and Armando: the love stories Latin America gave the world, and that the world is still discovering.
6
The elephant and the dove
The two great artists of post-revolutionary Mexico, bound by art and politics and divided by infidelity, who loved and wounded each other until Frida's death.
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7
The Liberator of the Liberator
The Quito-born revolutionary who left her husband to fight and love alongside the Liberator, saved his life in 1828, and earned the title "Liberator of the Liberator."
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8
A hundred sonnets for a secret lover
The secret lover who became wife, nurse and guardian of the Nobel laureate's legacy, and the muse of "100 Love Sonnets" and "The Captain's Verses."
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10
The warrior who became a volcano
The warrior sent to war who receives a false report of his death; the princess dies of grief and he watches over her body forever. The two become Mexico's twin volcanoes.
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11
Fifty-one years, nine months and four days
Florentino's wait for Fermina is fixed by the novel itself: fifty-one years, nine months and four days, until he declares his love again at her husband's funeral.
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13
The most successful telenovela in history
The "ugly," brilliant secretary Beatriz Pinzón and her boss Armando Mendoza: the love story that defies appearances and that the whole world adopted.
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14
Amor prohibido, the Tejano anthem
The Queen of Tejano and her band's guitarist defied her father Abraham's disapproval and eloped on April 2, 1992; she was murdered on March 31, 1995, at 23.
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15
The greatest love letter ever written
They met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in 1956; he proposed onstage in 1968 before 7,000 people. She helped him beat his addiction.
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17
Don't cry for her, Argentina
The colonel and the radio actress who became Argentina's most powerful political couple; Evita championed the descamisados and women's suffrage, and died of cancer at 33.
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19
The Inca love with a happy ending
The common-born general Ollantay loves Cusi Coyllur ("Joyful Star"), daughter of emperor Pachacútec; rebuffed for not being royal, he rebels for a decade while she is imprisoned, until the new emperor pardons and reunites them.
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21
The love the letters revealed
The Nobel laureate — the first Latin American woman to win it — and her American companion and translator; their love was revealed by the letters published as "Niña errante" (2010), shattering the myth of the lonely "Saint Gabriela."
Read the storyLove across classes in the coffee country
The coffee-picker and the plantation heir: a love across classes that became the most-watched telenovela in Colombian history and was reborn on Netflix in 2021.
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26
The love that created Iguazú Falls
The maiden Naipí, destined to be sacrificed to the serpent god M'Boi, flees by canoe with the warrior Tarobá; the enraged god splits the river to create the falls, turning her to rock and him to a tree leaning over the water.
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35
The legend of betrayed love
The woman who, betrayed by her lover, drowns her children and herself and wanders weeping "Oh, my children!": the legend of love turned to damnation that all of Latin America knows.
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40
The legend of the Vitória-régia
The maiden Naiá, obsessed with becoming a star to join the moon Jaci, sees his reflection in a lake, dives to embrace it and drowns; Jaci turns her into the "star of the waters," the giant Amazon water lily.
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41
Love and revolution in Santa Clara
The Cuban fighter who battled alongside Che in the taking of Santa Clara and became his wife; she stayed in Cuba raising their children while he left to make revolution on other continents.
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42
Make love, not war
The Beatle and the conceptual artist whose love became peace activism, their "bed-ins" a worldwide political performance.
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43
A socialite and a priest, shot for love
The young Buenos Aires socialite and the Jesuit priest who fell in love, fled together in 1847, and were captured and executed by firing squad on Rosas's orders in 1848 — Camila eight months pregnant.
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44
"Mi negro lindo": 41 years of sugar
The Queen of Salsa and her trumpeter Pedro Knight, married 41 years until her death; he gave up his career to be her director, manager and protector — her "negro lindo."
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45
Partners in the dream
The civil-rights leader and Coretta Scott, singer and activist: a partnership of love and struggle. After Martin's 1968 assassination, she devoted her life to guarding his legacy.
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46
Brazil's saddest sonnet
Brazil's greatest writer — mixed-race and grandson of freed slaves — and Carolina, his Portuguese wife: 35 years of marriage whose end inspired "A Carolina," one of the most celebrated love sonnets in the Portuguese language.
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48
The ambition that killed love
The beautiful, ambitious Rubí loves the doctor Alejandro but abandons him to marry for money: the most iconic antiheroine of the Mexican telenovela, undone by her own ambition.
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50
Two mountains that reconciled
The enmity of two kings passes to their sons, who kill each other but forgive in death; Pachamama turns their stars into the snow peaks Illimani and Illampu, their snow "tears of regret."
Read the storyFrom poverty to revenge for love
The humble Marimar, humiliated by the wealthy family of her beloved Sergio, returns as a powerful woman to win him back: the most-watched Cinderella fantasy of the 1990s.
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55
Passion, revenge and three brothers
The Reyes brother who approaches Norma Elizondo to avenge his sister and ends up hopelessly in love: the most scorching telenovela of the new millennium.
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56
"María Bonita", an eternal bolero
The greatest diva of Mexican cinema and the bolero composer who adored her: though the marriage was brief, he dedicated "María Bonita" to her, one of the most famous love songs in Spanish.
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58
Fifty-six years of love and struggle
The Black actor-activist couple married for 56 years, friends of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and a benchmark of Black American love and commitment.
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60
They loved and fought for freedom
The leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares, the great refuge of self-liberated enslaved people in Brazil: warriors and lovers who resisted the slave empire side by side.
Read the storyThe poet-cacica and the last Taíno warrior
The cacica of Xaragua, famed for her areítos and her beauty, and the chief of Maguana who led the first Taíno rebellion against the Spanish: two sovereigns of Quisqueya joined in love and resistance, both destroyed by the conquest.
Read the storyThe samba reborn by love
The great poet of samba, founder of the Mangueira school, and Eusébia "Dona Zica," the cook who had loved him since youth: they reunited as mature widowers, and she pulled him out of obscurity and drink to give him back his song.
Read the storyTopping the list is Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera: The two great artists of post-revolutionary Mexico, bound by art and politics and divided by infidelity, who loved and wounded each other until Frida's death.