Bioy Casares, Adolfo (1914–1999)

Adolfo Bioy Casares (b. 15 September 1914; d. 8 March 1999), Argentine novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Born in Buenos Aires, he studied law and philosophy and letters, but chose instead to run his family's estancia. In 1932 he became a close friend of Jorge Luis Borges, with whom, under the pseudonyms of H. Bustos Domecq, B. Suárez Lynch, and B. Lynch Davis, he wrote several detective stories. He is chiefly identified as a writer of fantastic literature due to his novel La invención de Morel (1940; The Invention of Morel and other Stories, 1964), which was awarded the Municipal Prize for Literature in 1941. This book marks the beginning of the modern science-fiction narrative in Argentine literature. In the same year, he wrote and published, together with his wife, the writer Silvina Ocampo, and Borges, the now classic Antología de la literatura fantástica.

Bioy demonstrated a wide range of narrative interests, from thrillers to love stories, with existentialist, Gothic, and pseudoscientific themes, and displayed his ability for light humor as well as dark irony and hallucinatory fantasies. He wrote about thirty books, many of which have been made into movies and television productions in Argentina and Italy, and he received the Cervantes Prize (Spain, 1991), the Mondello Award (Italy, 1984), and the National Literary Award (Argentina, 1962 and 1967). In 1973 he was awarded the major literary prize of his country, the Grand Prize of the Argentina Society of Writers. In 1990 he was the recipient of the Cervantes Prize, the highest prize of Hispanic letters. He died on March 8, 1999, in Buenos Aires.

See alsoScience Fiction in Latin America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David P. Gallagher, "The Novels and Short Stories of Adolfo Bioy Casares," in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 52 (1975); 247-266.

Suzanne J. Levine, Guía de Adolfo Bioy Casares (1982).

Thomas C. Meehan, "Temporal Simultaneity and the Theme of Time Travel in a Fantastic Story by Adolfo Bioy Casares," in Kentucky Romance Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1983): 167-185.

Additional Bibliography

Bioy Casares, Adolfo. Memorias. Infancia, adolescencia y cómo se hace un escritor. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1994.

Camurati, Mireya. Bioy Casares y el alegre trabajo de la inteligencia. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor, 1990.

Navascúes, Javier de. El esperpento controlado: La narrativa de Adolfo Bioy Casares. Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1995.

Orrego Arismendi, Juan Carlos. "Adolfo Bioy Casares y Jorge Luis Borges: La historia de una falsa paternidad." Revista Universidad de Antioquia 257 (July-Sep 1999): 59-65.

Villordo, Oscar Hermes. Genio y figura de Adolfo Bioy Casares. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1983.

                                 Angela B. Dellepiane