José Agustín

José Agustín was born in Acapulco, Mexico on 19 August 1944. He studied Classical Literature at the School of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Film direction at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos and Dramaturgy at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura.[3]

Agustín participated in Juan José Arreola's writers' workshop from 1962 to 1965, where he wrote his first novel, La Tumba (The Tomb), when he was nineteen years old.[2] The novel was the brief but provocative story of a Mexican upperclass teen, deemed indecent by the public but gathering praise from older writers. This and his most famous work, De Perfil (Profile view), a fast and detailed view of three days in the main character's life, show stylistic similarities to James Joyce's work, especially A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

He was considered a member of the so-called Onda literature, onda (wave) being slang for current and fashionable views in the eyes of young people.

A common technique in his work is mixing character's speech with narrative, without making any kind of distinction (free indirect discourse). Thus the reader finds a long dialogue written in a single sentence, and is expected to realize which character is speaking as he reads the words. He also makes use of the stream of consciousness technique.[4]

Agustin has taught at the University of Denver, the University of California, Irvine and the University of New Mexico.[5]

• 1977: Guggenheim Fellowship[6]
• 1993: Premio Nacional de Literatura Juan Ruiz de Alarcón
• 2011: Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes[7]

• 5 de chocolate y 1 de fresa (1968)
• Luz externa (1974)
• El año de la peste (1979)

The Mexican band Belafonte Sensacional wrote the song "Epic Aris" inspired by the literary works of José Agustín and Parménides García Saldaña, another writer that was considered a member of La Onda literature.[8]

• List of people from Morelos, Mexico