Adolfo Bioy Casares: Difference between revisions

| captionimage = Adolfo Bioy Casares in 1968.png

| languagealt = Spanish

| birth_date = {{birthBirth date|1914|9|15|df=y}}

| birth_place = [[Buenos Aires]], [[Argentina]]

| death_date = {{deathDeath date and age|1999|3|8|1914|9|15|df=y}}

| death_place = [[Buenos Aires]], [[Argentina]]

| resting_place = [[La Recoleta Cemetery]], [[Buenos Aires]], [[Argentina]]

| occupation = {{hlist|Writer, |poet, |critic, |librarian}}

| influencesawards = [[Jorge Luis Borges]], = [[H.Miguel G.de WellsCervantes Prize]] (1991)

}}'''Adolfo Bioy Casares''' ({{IPA-|es|aˈðolfo ˈβjoiˈβjoj kaˈsaɾes}}; 15 September 15,1914 1914 – 8 March 8, 1999) was an [[Argentines|Argentine]] fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman [[Jorge Luis Borges]],. andHe is the author of the [[Fantastique|fantastic fiction]] novel ''[[The Invention of Morel]]''.

Adolfo Bioy Casares was born on September 15, 1914, in [[Buenos Aires]], the only child of Adolfo Bioy Domecq and Marta Ignacia Casares [[Patrick Lynch (Argentina)|Lynch]]. He was born in [[Recoleta, Buenos Aires|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 [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]] (which he spoke from the age of 4) and [[German language|German]]. 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'.

In 1932 he met [[Jorge Luis Borges]] at Villa Ocampo, a house in [[San Isidro Partido|San Isidro]] belonging to [[Victoria Ocampo]]. There, she often hosted different international figures and organized cultural celebrations, one of which was ended up bringingbrought Borges and Bioy Casares together. Bioy Casares recalled that inon that particular occasion, the two writers stepped away from the rest of the guests, only to be reprimanded by Ocampo.<ref>[http://edant.clarin.com/suplementos/cultura/1999/08/22/e-01501d.htm «El tercer hombre.» 22 de agosto de 1999.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821080316/http://edant.clarin.com/suplementos/cultura/1999/08/22/e-01501d.htm |date=August 21, 2016 }} ''Clarín''.</ref> This reproachedreproach provoked each enoughthem to leave the gathering, aand return journey to the city thattogether. The journey sealed a lifelong friendship and many influential literary collaborations. Under the pseudonyms [[Honorio Bustos Domecq|H. Bustos Domecq]] and 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 fantasyfantastic 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'', a biographical volume of more than 1600 pages from Bioy Casares' journals, 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, 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 in the United States to his daughter, Marta, who was subsequently adopted by his wife Silvina. Marta 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 [[Paris, France]], on 11 February 2006.

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 [[Literary realism|realism]], [[fantasy]], science fiction and [[fear|terror]]. Borges wrote an introduction 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]]''<ref>Thomas Beltzer, ''Last Year at Marienbad: An Intertextual Meditation'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20120121024525/http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2000/10/marienbad/ ].</ref> and an influence on the TV series ''[[Lost (2004 TV series)|Lost]]''.

==='''Novels and novellas==='''

==='''Short story collections==='''

==='''Essays==='''

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

==='''Dictionary of Argentinean slang==='''

==='''Letters==='''

* ''En viaje (1967)'', 260 pp. (1996; "Travelling in 1967"; letters to Silvina Ocampo). Edited by Daniel Martino.

==='''Diaries==='''

*''Descanso de caminantes. Diarios íntimos'', 507 pp. (2001; "Rest for Travellers and Intimate Diaries"; a selection from his Journals). Edited by Daniel Martino.

==='''Works written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges==='''

==='''Works written in collaboration with Silvina Ocampo==='''

===Screenplays'''Works written in collaboration with JorgeDaniel Luis Borges===Martino'''

* [https://archive.today/20070315133822/http://www.logosfreebooks.org/pls/wordtc/new_wordtheque.w6_home_author.home?code_author=7117&lang=ES logosfreebooks.org biography of Bioy Casares]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (in Spanish)

[[Category:Prix20th-century RogerArgentine Cailloismale recipientswriters]]

[[Category:20th-century male writersdiarists]]