Argentine Literature

[Eric]

This thread has been ailing for some while, but just to give it a touch of class, may I mention that the German weekly Die Zeit has published an interesting section mainly covering Argentinian literature.

Argentina is, if you haven't heard already, the Guest of Honour nation at the Frankfurt Book Fair, so various publications are focussing on the literature from that country.

I know very little about contemporary Argentinian literature, but clearly the Germans aren't much better, as the author of the introductory article feels he has to say:

Von Tango, Gauchos, Che, Borges und Maradona ist in der neuen argentinischen Literatur selten die Rede.

So contemporary Argentinian literature rarely speaks about such clich?s. As you all adore lists of names, I shall produce one from this theme issue. Names such as Ernesto Mallo, Sonia Cristoff, Pedro Mairal, Claudia Pi?eiro, Beatriz Sarlo (literary scholar), Sergio Olgu?n, Sergio Bizzio, Carlos Busqued, Mart?n Kohan, Alan Pauls, Guillermo Mart?nez, Mart?n Caparr?s, Tom?s Eloy Mart?nez, Rodolfo Fogwill, Osvaldo Bayer, Ricardo Piglia, Ernesto S?bato, C?sar Aira.

A lot of new names to me. I'm sure that some of their works have been dealt with here on the WLF, but it's stimulating to have their names all together, so you can Google and Wiki for them, one by one.

Some of the same names appear in the reviews in the supplement to the Swiss daily Neue Z?rcher Zeitung entitled B?cherherbst 2010.

 

[Heteronym]

Since I'm still under the spell of the Nobel Prize, I have this question to ask: does anyone else find it amazing that no Argentine writer has been honored with a Nobel Prize for Literature?

How is that possible? This country produced Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cort?zar, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Ernesto Sabato, Roberto Arlt, and countless other great writers!

 

[anchomal]

waalkwriter mentioned in one of his posts recently that he felt the Nobel treated England particularly badly, overlooking a lot of fine writers. But England still boasts several winners. I can think, off hand, of no other country that has been as badly treated and as unfairly overlooked as Argentina, given the quality of writer they have produced. Borges not being awarded must rank as one of the Academy's biggest mistakes.

 

[Stiffelio]

Since I'm still under the spell of the Nobel Prize, I have this question to ask: does anyone else find it amazing that no Argentine writer has been honored with a Nobel Prize for Literature?

How is that possible? This country produced Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cort?zar, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Ernesto Sabato, Roberto Arlt, and countless other great writers!

It is indeed amazing and unfair that none of the authors you mentioned never got the Nobel, especially Borges - a real crime! S?bato is the only one alive (at 99!) but I don't think he'll get it. Nowadays there are many excellent Argentine writers from the next generation (I think of Piglia, Aira, Saccomano, Rivera, Pauls) but I don't think they are Nobel calibre, not yet at least. Juan Gelman has been mentioned: he's a fairly good poet and fits the politically-correct bill, so he might be the one. A very intereting, albeit poorly promoted, writer is H?ctor Tiz?n, who has over the years consistently produced top quality literature. He's a loner in literary terms, living in the north-western province of Jujuy. But I wonder how much of his work has been translated into other languages. And then he's 83 years old so maybe over the hill for the Swedish Academy.

 

[Stiffelio]

Borges not being awarded must rank as one of the Academy's biggest mistakes.

Indeed! The Academy should start giving posthumous or memorial awards to remedy these unfair cases.

 

[Daniel del Real]

So contemporary Argentinian literature rarely speaks about such clich?s. As you all adore lists of names, I shall produce one from this theme issue. Names such as Ernesto Mallo, Sonia Cristoff, Pedro Mairal, Claudia Pi?eiro, Beatriz Sarlo (literary scholar), Sergio Olgu?n, Sergio Bizzio, Carlos Busqued, Mart?n Kohan, Alan Pauls, Guillermo Mart?nez, Mart?n Caparr?s, Tom?s Eloy Mart?nez, Rodolfo Fogwill, Osvaldo Bayer, Ricardo Piglia, Ernesto S?bato, C?sar Aira.

Contemporary? Well, let's see. Tom?s Eloy Mart?nez and Rodolfo Fogwill died recently. Ernesto S?bato is 99 years old. I wouldn't call those names contemporary.

It is indeed amazing and unfair that none of the authors you mentioned never got the Nobel, especially Borges - a real crime! S?bato is the only one alive (at 99!) but I don't think he'll get it. Nowadays there are many excellent Argentine writers from the next generation (I think of Piglia, Aira, Saccomano, Rivera, Pauls) but I don't think they are Nobel calibre, not yet at least. Juan Gelman has been mentioned: he's a fairly good poet and fits the politically-correct bill, so he might be the one. A very intereting, albeit poorly promoted, writer is H?ctor Tiz?n, who has over the years consistently produced top quality literature. He's a loner in literary terms, living in the north-western province of Jujuy. But I wonder how much of his work has been translated into other languages. And then he's 83 years old so maybe over the hill for the Swedish Academy.

I agree, Gelman is the only one with a Nobel caliber.
I haven't read Piglia yet, one of those author that always get out of my hands for some reason or another (how expensive are his books is the main one). However he'll be present at the FIL 2010 in Guadalajara so it's a good time to tackle his books. So you tell me Stiffelio.
I've heard his best work is Respiraci?n Artificial, but it's damn expensive!

 

[Eric]

Daniel, you in Mexico are a little nearer to Argentina and are more aware of who is 99 and who dead, as well as other writers. Most people in Europe know zilch (as the Yanks say) about contemporary Argentinian literature.

Because of the ignorant attitude to translations exhibited by alarmingly many of my British compatriots, you never hear about contemporary Argentinian literature. People are still going on about Borges and Cort?zar (who spent a lot of his life in Europe). Even in Sweden, you read very little. It's only thanks to the German newspaper Die Zeit and the Swiss one NZZ, that I have read anything (in German) about the Guest of Honour nation at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Tell us more about, for instance, your reading of C?sar Aira, who sounds interesting. He's neither 99 nor dead. And I have noticed that there seems to be a bit of a Gelman craze. Why him? What's he written that is special?

You shouldn't expect the Swedish Academy to keep on expanding its awards, Stiffelio. Why can't the Argentinians or Lula in Brazil start a South American Nobel for the excellent writers there, instead of waiting for the Europeans. The answer is probably because Argentina has fairly recently been through a disastrous and chaotic period when their currency was worth nothing. Though they could pay the winner in tins of corned beef, which the laureate could then sell on to wholesalers to get his prize money. And regarding Brazil, I read excerpts from the Portuguese language press in French translation in Courrier International that Lula's economic miracle may prove to be a bit of a bubble, as only about 25% of Brazilians are what is termed "fully literate". That puts a brake on economic growth.

 

[Mirabell]

C?sar Aira, who sounds interesting. He's neither 99 nor dead. What's he written that is special?

we have several threads devoted to him (not difficult, forum search)
one about a book of his, for example http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/americas-literature/17956-cesar-aira-how-i-became-nun.html
and one about him directly
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/writers/11537-cesar-aira.html

the same, surprisingly, is true for Juan Gelman
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/writers/13746-juan-gelman.html

abracadabra

 

[Stiffelio]

Tell us more about, for instance, your reading of C?sar Aira, who sounds interesting. He's neither 99 nor dead. And I have noticed that there seems to be a bit of a Gelman craze. Why him? What's he written that is special?

Aira is one of the most unique, hard-to-classify writers we've had in a while. He's written over 60 novels (nouvelles, actually, as they're usually very short), so it's impossible to keep up with his entire work. To compound this, early in his career he tended to publish with several publishers at a time (mostly small, independent houses) and some of his books were hard to find. A few of his novels are quite brilliant (e.g. A Chinese Novel, Parmenides, The Miracle Cures of Dr Aira) but others are sloppy exercises, where one feels that he's pulling the reader's leg. Critics sometimes don't even bother to review his work. It's not surprising that only a few of his novels have been translated (although I must say the French, as usual, have taken a lot more interest in him than other countries). Aira is a writer's writer; much like Borges before him, the younger generations idolise him. But I don't think the type of playful literature he indulges in (again like Borges, and to an extent like Nabokov) would appeal the Swedish Academy. It would take some dedicated scholars and translators, together with intense lobbying to get them curious about him. But who knows, maybe in 10 years.........

As for Gelman, I cannot judge his poetry as I haven't read him, but it is quite suspicious to me that he only came into the limelight because of a personal tragedy, which he himself and his leftie entourage made sure to propagandise.

 

[Eric]

Whatever we differ on, I do believe that neither me nor Stiffelio like trendy lefties who use any means, fair or foul, to climb the greasy pole of success. Gelman's life has been scarred by a terrible tragedy. But we must know more about his whole life, and most crucially about the quality of his poetry as poetry, before we deem him, as Daniel has done "one of the most important poets alive in the Spanish language".

Mirabell, in his usual brief way, does have a valid point that we've already got something of a thread here about Aira. It tells us a little. That someone has read two of his books. And something about his style. What attracted me to finding out more about Aira when reading the article in Die Zeit was the fact that he deliberately sought out smaller publishers to publish with. That kind of idealism appeals to me.

If Aira has indeed written 50 books of short-stories, as Stewart says, and a total of 70 books, as Die Zeit says, he is a prodigious author. I'll have a look in the library this afternoon if anything of his has appeared in Swedish so as to give me a taste of his work.

Our Shigekuni might note that six of Aira's books have been translated into German in Berlin, Munich, and Graz, four of them published in 2010, i.e. this year. So I hope Shigekuni reviews one or two. Shigekuni is so much more verbal than Mirabell.

 

[Daniel del Real]

. And I have noticed that there seems to be a bit of a Gelman craze. Why him? What's he written that is special?

Here's a thread on Gelman Eric

http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/writers/13746-juan-gelman.html

This is not only biographic facts about him but a little review I wrote of an anthology I read last year called Pesar Todo (Weighting Everything)

Aira is one of the most unique, hard-to-classify writers we've had in a while. He's written over 60 novels (nouvelles, actually, as they're usually very short), so it's impossible to keep up with his entire work. To compound this, early in his career he tended to publish with several publishers at a time (mostly small, independent houses) and some of his books were hard to find. A few of his novels are quite brilliant (e.g. A Chinese Novel, Parmenides, The Miracle Cures of Dr Aira) but others are sloppy exercises, where one feels that he's pulling the reader's leg. Critics sometimes don't even bother to review his work. It's not surprising that only a few of his novels have been translated (although I must say the French, as usual, have taken a lot more interest in him than other countries). Aira is a writer's writer; much like Borges before him, the younger generations idolise him. But I don't think the type of playful literature he indulges in (again like Borges, and to an extent like Nabokov) would appeal the Swedish Academy. It would take some dedicated scholars and translators, together with intense lobbying to get them curious about him. But who knows, maybe in 10 years.........

The only similar example I can think of is Mexican writer Mario Bellatin who also writes very short novels and many of them are also literary exercices, experimental writings at the same time very ambitious and clever. I've personally enjoyed more Bellatin than Aira. He's not only a strange man with a hook in his arm he's also a very innovative writer with fresh proposals for modern literature.

 

[Stiffelio]

The only similar example I can think of is Mexican writer Mario Bellatin who also writes very short novels and many of them are also literary exercices, experimental writings at the same time very ambitious and clever. I've personally enjoyed more Bellatin than Aira. He's not only a strange man with a hook in his arm he's also a very innovative writer with fresh proposals for modern literature.

What a coincidence! I just wrote in the Aira thread that I saw similarities between him and Bellatin. I only read Bellatin's Chinese Checkers and I thought 'this is SO Aira-like!'. I definitely look forward to exploring more of Bellatin's work. As for Aira, and as I said before, when he is inspired he is unsurpassed for sheer bizarreness. His novels read like mock theorems for the reader to solve, which most of the time they don't but they have a big laughing ride anyway.

 

[Stiffelio]

What attracted me to finding out more about Aira when reading the article in Die Zeit was the fact that he deliberately sought out smaller publishers to publish with. That kind of idealism appeals to me.

If Aira has indeed written 50 books of short-stories, as Stewart says, and a total of 70 books, as Die Zeit says, he is a prodigious author.

The problem with this is that these small publishing firms have very limited distribution capabilities and they print very few copies. Therefore the reader is at a loss trying to keep track of Aira's works. My advice is, if you see an Aira book: buy it now or else you most likely won't find it available in a year or two, as the publishing firm might have gone out of business in the meantime, for one reason or other. It has happened before.

Aira doesn't write short-story collections. All his nouvelles typically range from 80 to 120 pages, with a few exceptions (his first 2 or 3 novels) where he would stretch to 200 pages or so.

 

[kpjayan]

Stiffelio, What about Manuel Puig ?

I've read "Kiss of the Spiderwoman","Eternal Curse on the Reader's of these pages" and "Betrayed by Rita Hayworth" .. I like the first two..

 

[Daniel del Real]

What a coincidence! I just wrote in the Aira thread that I saw similarities between him and Bellatin. I only read Bellatin's Chinese Checkers and I thought 'this is SO Aira-like!'. I definitely look forward to exploring more of Bellatin's work. As for Aira, and as I said before, when he is inspired he is unsurpassed for sheer bizarreness. His novels read like mock theorems for the reader to solve, which most of the time they don't but they have a big laughing ride anyway.

Quite fun indeed but quite obvious to those who have read both writers.
Please answer me about Piglia. I've also heard a lot of Argentinian Manuel Mujica Lainez. Have you read him?

Stiffelio, What about Manuel Puig ?

I've read "Kiss of the Spiderwoman","Eternal Curse on the Reader's of these pages" and "Betrayed by Rita Hayworth" .. I like the first two..

Another writer I have pending to read. I need more time damn it!

 

[Stiffelio]

Please answer me about Piglia. I've also heard a lot of Argentinian Manuel Mujica Lainez. Have you read him?

I confess I haven't read Piglia yet. Maybe I have subconsciously been avoiding him because he comes across as snobbish and so full of himself. Yes, his best novel is supposed to be Respiraci?n Artificial. A few years ago he was in the middle of a scandal when it was discovered that the local Planeta Prize to his novel Plata Quemada had been rigged in his favor. That affair certainly didn't help me being attracted to him. All that said, I suppose I'll read him sooner or later. He's just got a new novel published, Blanco Nocturno, and that's probably the reason why he's going to Guadalajara.

I only read one book by Mujica L?inez, Misteriosa Buenos Aires, and I remember being impressed by his polished, proustian style. But that was ages ago. His was a fascinating life story. He was a decadent aristocrat and behaved like one: he was married with children but travelled round the world with a retinue of Tadzio-looking ephebes. He was also very generous with younger writers. His estate in the province of C?rdoba hosted many intellectuals and artists who were going through difficult times. But, above all, he was a wonderful writer, much respected by critics and younger writers.

Stiffelio, What about Manuel Puig ?

I've read "Kiss of the Spiderwoman","Eternal Curse on the Reader's of these pages" and "Betrayed by Rita Hayworth" .. I like the first two..

Manuel Puig was a fantastic writer who unfortunatelly died too young. He was a true 'revolutionary' in literary terms. He came from a little provincial town and wrote what were essentially Peyton Place-like melodramas which, thanks to his thorough understanding of his characters's psyche and a unique ear for middle-class dialogue, he elevated to the ranks of high literature. He was fascinated by the radio and the cinema and you can see that influence in his novels. I read Boquitas Pintadas (Heartbreak Tango), The Buenos Aires Affair and Kiss of the Spider Woman, all of which I recommend.

 

[Daniel del Real]

This one goes to you Stiffelio: I was checking the calendar for the next Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara and I saw a conference titled "Muestra de literatura argentina contempor?nea". There are two young writers mentioned there, and as expected I haven't heard their names.

Eric Schierloh: Narrador, poeta y traductor. Recibi? la beca del Fondo Nacional de las Artes para una investigaci?n y traducci?n de parte de la obra menos conocida de Herman Melville. Como resultado de este proyecto, compil? y tradujo el volumen Lejos de tierra y otros poemas, (2008). En la actualidad trabaja en otro libro sobre el mismo autor, Diario a bordo del Meteor, un diario de viajes, que saldr? publicado en noviembre de 2010. Su tercera novela, Donde termina el desierto, recibi? el Premio del Fondo Nacional de las Artes, ser? publicada en 2011. Ha publicado, entre otras, Formas de humo (2006), Kilgore, o todo vuelve a su cauce m?s pronto o m?s tarde (2010)

Pablo Katchadjian: Narrador, poeta y profesor universitario, ha desarrollado una obra personal y peculiar en el ?mbito de la nueva narrativa argentina. Public? El Mart?n Fierro ordenado alfab?ticamente (2007), El Aleph engordado (2009). Estos dos t?tulos forman parte de un proyecto de intervenci?n cr?tica en desarrollo sobre algunas de las obras can?nicas de la literatura Argentina, como C?sar Aira, El cam del alch (2005) Dp canta el alma (2004) y Qu? hacer (2010)

Please tell me if you know anything about them pls.

 

[Stiffelio]

I haven't heard anything about these guys with unpronounceable surnames (which only reinforces the notion of Argentina being a huge cauldron of people from the most diverse origins). I've seen Kilgore displayed in specialized bookstores but I haven't seen any reviews. The second guy appears to just write criticism.

 

[Bubba]

I confess I haven't read Piglia yet. Maybe I have subconsciously been avoiding him because he comes across as snobbish and so full of himself. Yes, his best novel is supposed to be Respiraci?n Artificial. A few years ago he was in the middle of a scandal when it was discovered that the local Planeta Prize to his novel Plata Quemada had been rigged in his favor. That affair certainly didn't help me being attracted to him. All that said, I suppose I'll read him sooner or later. He's just got a new novel published, Blanco Nocturno, and that's probably the reason why he's going to Guadalajara.

Thanks for mentioning this scandal, Stiffelio. I'd either forgotten about it or never been more than vaguely aware of it. How horrifying it was! (In some ways, though, I was a bit pleased, as it confirmed some of my prejudices against Piglia and his ilk.)

For those who don't read Spanish or don't want to go reading through old blog posts, here is a summary of the scandal: Piglia's unpublished novel Plata quemada won the 1997 Premio Planeta by unanimous decision of the jurors. One of the rules of the competition was that the novel had to be unpublished and that the rights to it couldn't have been signed away to any publisher. Yet Piglia had earlier signed away (presumably against an advance, more about which later) the rights to his future novels to a subsidiary of the publisher Planeta. Piglia never got his prize money of about USD40,000. It went straight to cancel a debt of his to Planeta (I am presuming he had this debt to his publisher because he was given an advance for a book or books he never produced). The president of the jury that awarded the prize to Piglia's book was a publisher at Planeta and two weeks later became Piglia's agent. One of the nine other finalists for the award--one Gustavo Nielsen--lodged a civil complaint against the organizers of the prize for rigging it in Piglia's favor. He won his case on appeal, eight years after he first brought it to the courts, and was awarded about USD3,500 in damages. Only one of the jurors testified: she said she had never been given a copy of Nielsen's typescript.

It all might sound extremely petty, but Nielsen has a very moving and eloquent letter explaining his reasons for pursuing this case for eight years (during which he was cast into the wilderness by much of the Argentine literary establishment); all Piglia can do, in a despicable article in which he attempts feebly to come to his own defense, is to compare Nielsen to Carlos Argentino Daneri and himself to Borges. At some point, in addition, a petition denouncing purported attacks on Piglia's reputation, denouncing Nielsen, in short, though not by name, made the rounds of Argentina's literati and was signed by many of them, including such minor luminaries as Saer and Tizón.

I'll never give Piglia another chance now (fairly easy for me to do, as Respiración artificial turned me off). And Saer's and Tizón's signatures on that petition give me leave to think ill of them and their work with fewer scruples than before. Nielsen, on the other hand, strikes me as a good writer, an honest writer. I might look for some of his stuff.

 

[Stiffelio]

Thanks for your excellent account of the Piglia scandal. You're very well informed. I was not aware of the Saer and Tizón supporting signatures. I think these two are honest (and very talented!!) writers and they were probably not told the whole story at the time, so siding with the until-then-very-respected Piglia (rather than believeing the supposedly 'sour-graped' Nielsen) could have made sense. It was only when Nielsen won the legal battle that the whole truth was known by everybody. But justice to Nielsen was not only made at the courts. His literary prestige has continued to grow with each book he has published and (you probably know this too) he has recently won the Premio Clarín for his novel "La Otra Playa" (The Other Beach).

http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/literatura/Premio-Clarin-Novela-Gustavo-Nielsen_0_369563232.html