Anderson Imbert, Enrique (1910–2000)

Enrique Anderson Imbert, whom the noted Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar considered one of the most important short story writers of Latin America, was the first major Argentine writer of his era to cultivate the fantastic. He was also one of the leading critics of his generation, an essayist, a literary historian, and an influential teacher. Born on February 12, 1910, in Córdoba, he studied philology and philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires with Pedro Henríquez Ureña and Alejandro Korn. He taught at the University of Cuyo (Mendoza) in 1940 and at the University of Tucumán (1941–1947). Having established an early reputation as a literary critic writing for the Buenos Aires daily La Vanguardia through 1930, Anderson Imbert published his first novel Vigilia (1934), which was awarded the Buenos Aires Municipal Prize for Literature, and in 1937 La flecha en el aire. He wrote articles for major journals such as Sur. In 1947 Anderson went to the United States on a Guggenheim fellowship and taught at the University of Michigan until 1965, returning briefly to Argentina in 1955 to teach at the universities of Buenos Aires and La Plata. From 1954 to 1956 he published his best-selling and influential Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana (A history of Spanish-American literature). From 1965 to 1980 he was the John Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.

After his retirement from Harvard, Anderson Imbert divided his time between Argentina and the United States, writing fiction, lecturing, and serving as president of the Argentine Academy of Letters. His major works of fiction include El grimorio (1961), El gato Cheshire (1965), La locura juega al ajedrez (1971), and Evocación de sombras en la ciudad geométrica (1989). He died in Buenos Aires on December 6, 2000.

See alsoCortázar, Julio; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson Imbert, Enrique. Woven on the Loom of Time: Stories. Translated by Carleton Vail and Pamela Edwards-Mondragón. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.

Giacomán, Helmy F., ed. Homenaje a Enrique Anderson Imbert: Variaciones, interpretaciones en torno a su obra. Madrid: Anaya, 1974.

Hall, Nancy Abraham, and Lanin Gyurko, eds. Studies in Honor of Enrique Anderson Imbert. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2003.

Liggera, Rubén Américo. De espejos, fantasmas y esqueletos: Ensayos sobre la obra literaria de Enrique Anderson Imbert. Buenos Aires: RundiNuskín, 1990.

                            Georgette Magassy Dorn