Heteronym
Reader
Perhaps no other literature has offered me so much joy. Its writers have marvelled me for years with their amazing novels and short-stories where the everyday and the fantastic merge.
It all starts with an epic poem, Jos? Hern?ndez' 1872 Mart?n Fierro, the zenith of Gauchesque poetry, a style that emphasized the language, the folklore and the culture of the pampas, which hoped to separate it from the dominating Euro-centric Spanish culture.
The 20th century gave us Leopoldo Lugones, poet and a major influence on the poetry circles young Borges was part of. Lugones was also a short-story writer, whose Strange Forces is an awkward piece which reimagines biblical catastrophes, explains why monkeys refuse to talk even though they can, invents a new type of flower, devoted to death, narrates a rebellion of horses against their masters, and discusses new lifeforms at the dawn of time.
There's also Roberto Artl, whose The Seven Madmen is one of the greatest novels I've ever read: it's about a man who tries to acquire money to finance a secret society that will take over the world. And how will they finance it? By building brothels all over Argentina, of course! You know O'Brien's diatribe against Mankind in 1984? In Arlt's novel there's the Astrologist, who's ten times more cynical.
Adolfo Bioy Casares and Julio Cort?zar were masters of the absurd and the surreal; their finely-crafted short-stories and novels have fascinated me in recent times. And finally there's Jorge Luis Borges, my candidate for the 20th century's greatest writer: poet, short-story writer, essayist, literary critic, literature teacher, Borges' love for books have made me discover countless new writers.
What is being written in Argentina today? That's what I'd love to know.
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It all starts with an epic poem, Jos? Hern?ndez' 1872 Mart?n Fierro, the zenith of Gauchesque poetry, a style that emphasized the language, the folklore and the culture of the pampas, which hoped to separate it from the dominating Euro-centric Spanish culture.
The 20th century gave us Leopoldo Lugones, poet and a major influence on the poetry circles young Borges was part of. Lugones was also a short-story writer, whose Strange Forces is an awkward piece which reimagines biblical catastrophes, explains why monkeys refuse to talk even though they can, invents a new type of flower, devoted to death, narrates a rebellion of horses against their masters, and discusses new lifeforms at the dawn of time.
There's also Roberto Artl, whose The Seven Madmen is one of the greatest novels I've ever read: it's about a man who tries to acquire money to finance a secret society that will take over the world. And how will they finance it? By building brothels all over Argentina, of course! You know O'Brien's diatribe against Mankind in 1984? In Arlt's novel there's the Astrologist, who's ten times more cynical.
Adolfo Bioy Casares and Julio Cort?zar were masters of the absurd and the surreal; their finely-crafted short-stories and novels have fascinated me in recent times. And finally there's Jorge Luis Borges, my candidate for the 20th century's greatest writer: poet, short-story writer, essayist, literary critic, literature teacher, Borges' love for books have made me discover countless new writers.
What is being written in Argentina today? That's what I'd love to know.
Related Threads: