Juan Carlos Onetti

Juan Carlos Onetti Borges (July 1, 1909 – May 30, 1994) was a Uruguayan novelist and author of short stories.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Onetti and the second or maternal family name is Borges.
Juan Carlos Onetti
Portrait of the writer
Portrait of the writer
BornJuly 1, 1909
Montevideo, Uruguay
DiedMay 30, 1994(1994-05-30) (aged 84)
Madrid, Spain
OccupationJournalist, Novelist
NationalityUruguayan
Juan Carlos Onetti (1981)

Early life

Onetti was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was the son of Carlos Onetti, a customs official, and Honoria Borges, who belonged to a Brazilian aristocratic family from the state of Rio Grande do Sul.[1] He had two siblings: an older brother Raul, and a younger sister Rachel.

The original surname of his family was O'Nety (of Irish or Scottish origin). The writer himself commented: "the first to come here, my great-great-grandfather, was English, born in Gibraltar. My grandfather was the one who italianized the name".[2]

Career

A high school drop-out, Onetti's first novel, El pozo, published in 1939,[3] met with his close friends' immediate acclaim, as well as from some writers and journalists of his time. 500 copies of the book were printed, most of them left to rot at the only bookstore that sold it, Barreiro (the book was not reprinted until the 1960s, with an introduction and preliminary study by Ángel Rama). Aged 30, Onetti was already working as editing secretary of the famous weekly Uruguayan newspaper Marcha. He had lived for some years in Buenos Aires, where he published short stories and wrote cinema critiques for the local media, and met and befriended novelist and journalist Roberto Arlt, author of the novels El juguete rabioso, Los siete locos, Los lanzallamas.[4]

He went on to become one of Latin America's most distinguished writers, earning Uruguay National Literature Prize in 1962. He was considered a senior member of the 'Generation of 45', a Uruguayan intellectual and literary movement: Carlos Maggi, Manuel Flores Mora, Ángel Rama, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, Idea Vilariño, Carlos Real de Azúa, Mauricio Muller, José Pedro Díaz, Amanda Berenguer, Mario Benedetti, Ida Vitale, Líber Falco, among others.[5]

In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen Nelson Marra's short story El guardaespaldas (i.e. "The bodyguard") as the winner of Marcha's annual literary contest. Due to a series of misunderstandings (and the need to fill some space in the following day's edition), El guardaespaldas was published in Marcha, although it had been widely agreed among them that they shouldn't do so due to its sensitive political themes.[6]

Onetti left his native country (and his much-loved city of Montevideo) after being imprisoned for 6 months in Colonia Etchepare, a mental institution. A long list of world-famous writers -including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Benedetti – signed open letters addressed to the military government of Uruguay.[7]

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, violinist Dorothea Muhr.[8] There he continued his career as a writer, being awarded the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Cervantes. He remained in Madrid until his death there in 1994.[9] He is interred in the Cementerio de la Almudena in Madrid.[10]

Writing awards
  • Uruguay National Literature Prize (1962)[11]
  • William Faulkner Foundation Ibero-American Award (1963)[12]
  • Italian-Latin American Institute Prize (1972)
  • Premio Cervantes (1980)

Selected works ([13])
  • El pozo (1939) – The Pit
  • Tierra de nadie (1941) – No Man's Land
  • Para esta noche (1943) – Tonight
  • La vida breve (1950) – A Brief Life
  • Un sueño realizado y otros cuentos (1951)
  • Los adioses (1954)
  • Para una tumba sin nombre (1959) – A Grave with No Name
  • La cara de la desgracia (1960)
  • El astillero (1961) – The Shipyard
  • Juntacadáveres (1964) – Body Snatcher
  • Tres novelas (1967)
  • Cuentos completos (1967)
  • Los rostros del amor (1968)
  • Novelas y cuentos cortos completos (1968)
  • Obras completas (1970)
  • La muerte y la niña (1973)
  • Cuentos completos (1974)
  • Tiempo de abrazar (1974)
  • Réquiem por Faulkner (1975)
  • Tan triste como ella y otros cuentos (1976)
  • Dejemos hablar al viento (1979) – Let the Wind Speak
  • Cuentos secretos (1986)
  • Presencia y otros cuentos (1986)
  • Cuando entonces (1987)
  • Goodbyes and Other Stories (1990)
  • Cuando ya no importe (1993) – Past Caring

Film adaptations

Uruguayan director Alvaro Brechner adapted "Jacob y el Otro" for his 2009 film Bad day to go fishing ("Mal día para pescar"). The film premiered at 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and was the Uruguayan candidate for Oscar Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. There is an Argentinian film based on his short story "El infierno tan temido."

Legacy

An important literary award from Montevideo is named after him: Concurso Literario Juan Carlos Onetti.

References
  1. "Biografia de Juan Carlos Onetti".
  2. Harss, Luis. "Juan Carlos Onetti, o las sombras en la pared Luis Harss: Los nuestros". www.literatura.us (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  3. Ardila, J. A. G., ed. (2015). The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature : From the Sixteenth Century to the Neopicaresque. J. A. G. Ardila. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 241. ISBN 978-1-107-03165-4.
  4. Magill, Frank N (1984). Critical Survey of Long Fiction: Foreign language series. Vol. 3. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press. p. 1209. ISBN 978-0-89356-369-1.
  5. Generación del 45: severa en la crítica y brillante en la creación. Archived 2012-09-22 at the Wayback Machine
  6. King, John (2007). The Role of Mexico's Plural in Latin American Literary and Political Culture. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 99–101. ISBN 978-0-2306-0968-6.
  7. Santoni, Pedro (2008). Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Latin America : From the Wars of Independence to the Central American Civil Wars. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 240. ISBN 9780313055003.
  8. Morse, Kimberly J., ed. (2022). The Americas : An Encyclopedia of Culture and Society. Kimberly J. Morse. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Press. p. 925. ISBN 978-1-4408-5238-1.
  9. Rocca, Pablo (2005). El 45 : entrevistas/testimonios (in Spanish). Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental. p. 19. ISBN 978-9974-103-66-5.
  10. International Institute of Ibero-American Literature (1939). "Revista iberoamericana". Revista iberoamericana (in Spanish). 60 (168–169): 1185. ISSN 0034-9631 – via WorldCat.
  11. Kadir, Djelal (1977). Juan Carlos Onetti. Boston: Twayne Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 9780805763102.
  12. Cohn, Deborah; Smith, Jon, eds. (2004). Look Away! : The U.S. South in New World Studies. Donald E. Pease, George B. Handley. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 415. ISBN 978-0-8223-8577-6.
  13. Smith, Verity (2014). Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Routledge. p. 442. ISBN 978-1-57958-252-4.

Further reading

English

  • Juan Carlos Onetti, Manuel Puig and Luisa Valenzuela : marginality and gender / Linda Craig., 2005
  • Onetti and others : comparative essays on a major figure in Latin American literature / Gustavo San Román., 1999
  • Over her dead body : the construction of male subjectivity in Onetti / Judy Maloof., 1995
  • An analysis of the short stories of Juan Carlos Onetti : fictions of desire / Mark Millington., 1993
  • The landscapes of alienation : ideological subversion in Kafka, Céline, and Onetti / Jack Murray., 1991
  • Reading Onetti : language, narrative, and the subject / Mark Millington., 1985
  • Juan Carlos Onetti / Djelal Kadir., 1977
  • Three authors of alienation : Bombal, Onetti, Carpentier / Michael Ian Adams., 1975
  • The formal expression of meaning in Juan Carlos Onetti's narrative art / Yvonne Perier Jones., 1971

Spanish

  • Bienvenido, Juan : textos críticos y testimoniales sobre Juan Carlos Onetti / Carina Blixen., 2007
  • Onetti, la fundación imaginada : la parodia del author en la saga de Santa María / Roberto Ferro., 2003
  • El sueño y la locura en la narrativa de Juan Carlos Onetti / Moira Bailey J., 1998
  • La Obra de Juan Carlos Onetti : coloquio internacional / Université de Poitiers., 1990
  • Identidad rioplatense, 1930 : la escritura colloquial : Borges, Arlt, Hernández, Onetti / Noemí Ulla., 1990
  • Juan Carlos Onetti, papeles críticos : medio siglo de escritura / Jaime Concha., 1989
  • J.C. Onetti : el espectáculo imaginario, II / José Pedro Díaz., 1989
  • Construcción de la noche. La vida de Juan Carlos Onetti / Carlos María Dominguez., 1993
  • Onetti y la (in)fidelidad a las reglas del juego / Ronald Méndez-Clark., 1993.
  • Juan Carlos Onetti / Hugo J Verani., 1987
  • El primer Onetti y sus contextos / María C Milián-Silveira., 1986
  • Juan C. Onetti / Emir Rodríguez Monegal., 1985
  • Onetti, calculado infortunio / Fernando Curiel., 1984
  • La dialectica de la identidad en la obra de Juan Carlos Onetti / Juan Manuel Molina., 1982
  • Onetti, el ritual de la impostura / Hugo J Verani., 1981
  • Juan Carlos Onetti, o, la salvación por la escritura / Omar Prego., 1981
  • Onetti, obra y calculado infortunio / Fernando Curiel., 1980
  • El viaje a la ficción: El mundo de Juan Carlos Onetti / Mario Vargas Llosa., 2008
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