Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Bioy Casares

Bioy Casares in 1968
Born (1914-09-15)September 15, 1914
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died March 8, 1999(1999-03-08) (aged 84)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Resting place La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Occupation Writer, poet, critic, librarian
Language Spanish
Nationality Argentine
Notable works The Invention of Morel
Notable awards Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1991)

Adolfo Bioy Casares (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈβjoi kaˈsaɾes]; September 15, 1914 – March 8, 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.

Biography

Adolfo Bioy Casares was born on September 15, 1914 in Buenos Aires, the only child of Adolfo Bioy Domecq and Marta Ignacia Casares Lynch. He was born in Recoleta, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires traditionally inhabited by upper class families, where he would reside the majority of his life. Due to his family's high social class, he was able to dedicate himself exclusively to literature and, at the same time, distinguish his work from the traditional literary medium of his time. He wrote his first story ("Iris y Margarita") at the age of eleven. He began his secondary education in the Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Later, he started but did not end up finishing degrees in law, philosophy, and literature. Fueled by disappointment with the university atmosphere, he moved to a family ranch where, when he didn't have visitors, he devoted himself almost entirely to his study of literature. By the time he reached his late twenties, he maintained proficiency in English, French (which he spoke from the age of 4), German, and, of course Spanish. Between 1929 and 1937 Bioy Casares published a number of books (Prólogo, 17 disparos contra lo porvenir, Caos, La nueva tormenta, La estatua casera, Luis Greve, muerto) that he would later disdain, restricting additional publications and refusing to discuss them, labeling all his work previous to 1940 as 'horrible'.

It was in 1932 that he met Jorge Luis Borges at Villa Ocampo, a house in San Isidro belonging to Victoria Ocampo. There, she often hosted different international figures and organized cultural celebrations, one of which was ended up bringing Borges and Bioy Casares together. Bioy Casares recalled that in that particular occasion, the two writers stepped away from the rest of the guests, only to be reprimanded by Ocampo.[1] This reproached provoked each enough to leave the gathering, a return journey to the city that sealed a life-long friendship and many influential literary collaborations. Under the pseudonyms H. Bustos Domecq y Benito Suárez Lynch, the two teamed up on a variety of projects from short stories (Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi, Dos fantasías memorables, Un modelo para la muerte), to screenplays (Los orilleros, Invasión), and even fantasy fiction (Antología de la literatura fantástica, Cuentos breves y extraordinarios). Between 1945 and 1955, they directed "El séptimo círculo" ("The Seventh Circle"), a collection of translations of popular english detective fiction, a genre that Borges greatly admired. In 2006, "Borges", an immense biographical volume of more than 1600 pages from Bioy Casares' journals that revealed many additional details of the friendship shared by the two writers. Bioy Casares had already prepared and corrected the texts some time previously, but he never was able to publish them himself.

In 1940, he published the novella The Invention of Morel", which marked the beginning of his literary maturity. The novella's prologue was written by Borges, in which he comments on the absence of precursors to science fiction in spanish literature, presenting Bioy Casares as the pioneer of a new genre. The novella was very well accepted and received the Primer Premio Municipal de Literatura (First Municipal Prize of Literature) in 1941. During this same time, in collaboration with Borges and Silvina Ocampo, he published two anthologies: Antología de la literatura fantástica (1940) y Antología poética argentina (1941).

In 1940, Bioy Casares married Silvina Ocampo, Victoria's sister, who was a painter as well as a writer. In 1954, one of Bioy Casares' mistresses gave birth to his daughter, Marta, who was subsequently adopted by his wife Silvina. Marta was was killed in an automobile accident just three weeks after Silvina Ocampo's death, leaving Adolfo with two children. The estate of Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares was awarded by a Buenos Aires court to yet another love child of Adolfo Bioy Casares, Fabián Bioy. Fabián Bioy died, aged 40, in February 2006.

Bioy won several awards, including the Gran Premio de Honor of SADE (the Argentine Society of Writers, 1975), the French Legion of Honour (1981), the Diamond Konex Award of Literature (1994) the title of Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires (1986), and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (awarded to him in 1991 in Alcalá de Henares). Adolfo Bioy Casares is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.

Works

The best-known novel by Bioy Casares is La invención de Morel (The Invention of Morel). It is the story of a man who, evading justice, escapes to an island said to be infected with a mysterious fatal disease. Struggling to understand why everything seems to repeat, he realizes that all the people he sees there are actually recordings, made with a special machine, invented by Morel, which is able to record not only three-dimensional images, but also voices and scents, making it all indistinguishable from reality. The story mixes realism, fantasy, science fiction and terror. Borges wrote a famous prologue in which he called it a work of "reasoned imagination" and linked it to H. G. Wells' oeuvre. Both Borges and Octavio Paz described the novel as "perfect." The story is held to be the inspiration for Alan Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad[2] and an influence on the TV series Lost.

Novels and Novelas

Short Story Collections

Generally, these Spanish-language collections have not been systematically translated into English. English language collections include:

Essays

Miscellanies (mixed collections of stories, poems, essays, reflections, aphorisms, etc.)

Dictionary of Argentinean slang

Letters

Diaries

Works written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges

Dos fantasías memorables and Un modelo para la muerte were originally published in private printings of only 300 copies. The first commercial printings were published in 1970.

Works written in collaboration with Silvina Ocampo

Screenplays written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges

References

  1. ↑ «El tercer hombre.» 22 de agosto de 1999. Clarín.
  2. ↑ Thomas Beltzer, Last Year at Marienbad: An Intertextual Meditation .

External links

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About The Invention of Morel

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