Saer, Juan José (1937–2005)

Juan José Saer is considered one of Argentina's finest fiction writers. Born on June 28, 1937, in Serodino, in the province of Santa Fe, Saer was a professor at the School of Film at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral. In 1968 he moved to France, where he taught Latin American literature at the University of Rennes. His first novels, such as Responso (1964) and La vuelta completa (1966; The Complete Return), and his collections of short stories, En la zona (1960; In the Zone), Palo y hueso (1965; Wood and Bone), and Unidad de lugar (1967; Unit of Place), are in the realist vein, with elements of American regionalism. The stories in Cicatrices (1969; Scars) and the novels El limonero real (1974; The Real Lemon Tree), Nadie nada nunca (1980; translated as Nobody Nothing Never, 1993), El entenado (1983; The Entenado), Glosa (1985; It Glosses), La ocasión (1986; The Occasion), and Lo imborrable (1992; The Imborrable) display the influence of objectivism on the new French novel. His poetic works are collected in El arte de narrar (1977; The Art of Narration), a paradoxical title that reflects his persistent attempt to combine poetry and fiction. His work has been translated into French, English, German, Italian, and Portuguese. In 1987 he won the Nadal Prize for Literature. Saer died June 11, 2005, in Paris. His last novel, La Grande (2005; The Great One), was published posthumously.

See alsoArgentina: The Twentieth Century; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Corbatta, Jorgelina. Juan José Saer, arte poética y práctica literaria. Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2005.

Riera, Gabriel. Littoral of the Letter: Saer's Art of Narration. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006.

                                                Elena Moreira