Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Bioy Casares
Bioy Casares in 1968
Born	(1914-09-15)September 15, 1914 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Resting place	La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Occupation	Writer, poet, critic, librarian
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Argentine
Notable works	The Invention of Morel
Notable awards	Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1991)

Adolfo Bioy Casares (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈβjoi kaˈsaɾes]; September 15, 1914 – March 8, 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.

Biography

Adolfo Bioy Casares was born in Buenos Aires, the grandson of a wealthy landowner and dairy processor, and the descendant of Patrick Lynch, a successful Irish emigrant. He wrote his first story ("Iris y Margarita") at the age of eleven.

Bioy wrote many stories with Jorge Luis Borges under the pseudonym of H. Bustos Domecq after they were introduced in 1932 by Victoria Ocampo, whose sister, Silvina Ocampo (1903–1994), Bioy Casares was to marry in 1940. In 1954 she also adopted Bioy's daughter with another woman, Marta Bioy Ocampo (1954–94), who was killed in an automobile accident just three weeks after Silvina Ocampo's death, leaving 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 February 2006.

Bioy won several awards, including the Gran Premio de Honor of SADE (the Argentine Society of Writers, 1975), the French Legion of Honour (1981), the Diamond Konex Award of Literature (1994) the title of Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires (1986), and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (awarded to him in 1991 in Alcalá de Henares). Adolfo Bioy Casares is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.

In 2006 Ediciones Destino published a book of Bioy's diary entries on Borges, numbering 1663 pages of anecdotes, witticisms and observations.

Works

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 realism, fantasy, science fiction and terror. Borges wrote a famous prologue 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 and also an influence on the TV series Lost.

Novels and Novelas

• La nueva tormenta o la vida de Juan Ruteno, 167 pp. (1935; "The New Storm or The Life of Juan Ruteno")
• La invención de Morel, 126 pp. (1940; translated into English as The Invention of Morel, 1964, ISBN 1-59017-057-1)
• El perjurio de la nieve, 64 pp. (1944; "The Snow's Perjury")
• Plan de evasión, 162 pp. (1945; translated into English as A Plan for Escape, 1975, ISBN 1-55597-107-5)
• El sueño de los héroes, 216 pp. (1954; translated into English as The Dream of Heroes, 1987, ISBN 0-7043-2634-5)
• Homenaje a Francisco Almeyra, 37 pp. (1954; "Homage to Francisco Almeyra")
• Diario de la guerra del cerdo, 207 pp. (1969; translated into English as Diary of the War of the Pig, 1972, ISBN 0-07-073742-8)
• Dormir al Sol, 229 pp. (1973; translated into English as Asleep in the Sun, 1978, ISBN 0-89255-030-9)
• La aventura de un fotógrafo en La Plata, 223 pp. (1985; translated into English as The Adventures of a Photographer in La Plata, 1989, ISBN 0-7475-0798-8)
• Un campeón desparejo, 110 pp. (1993; "An Uneven Champion")

Short Story Collections

• 17 disparos contra el porvenir, 173 pp. (1933; "17 Shots Against the Future")
• Caos, 283 pp. (1934, "Chaos")
• Luis Greve, muerto, 157 pp. (1937; "Luis Greve, Deceased")
• La trama celeste, 246 pp. (1948; "The Celestial Plot")
• Las vísperas de Fausto, 15 pp. (1949; "Faust's Eve")
• Historia prodigiosa, 151 pp. (1956; "A Remarkable History")
• El lado de la sombra, 192 pp. (1962; "The Shady Side")
• El gran serafín, 190 pp. (1967; "The Great Seraph")
• El héroe de las mujeres, 191 pp. (1978; "The Hero of Women")
• Historias desaforadas, 231 pp. (1986; "Colossal Stories")
• Una muñeca rusa, 179 pp. (1991; translated into English as A Russian Doll and Other Stories, 1992, ISBN 0-8112-1211-4)

Generally, these Spanish-language collections have not been systematically translated into English. English language collections include:

• Selected Stories, 176 pp. (1994, ISBN 0-8112-1275-0)

Essays

• La otra aventura, 153 pp. (1968, "The Other Adventure")
• Memoria sobre la pampa y los gauchos, 57 pp. (1970, "Memoir on the Pampas and the Gauchos")

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

• Prólogo, 127 pp. (1929; "Prologue")
• La estatua casera, 51 pp. (1936; "The Household Statue")
• Guirnalda con amores, 200 pp. (1959; "Garland with Loves")

Dictionary of Argentinean slang

• Breve diccionario del argentino exquisito, 161 pp. (1971; "Brief Dictionary of Affected Argentineans")

Letters

• En viaje (1967), 260 pp. (1996; "Travelling in 1967"; letters to Silvina Ocampo)

Diaries

• Descanso de caminantes. Diarios íntimos, 507 pp. (2001; "Rest for Travellers and Intimate Diaries"; a selection from his Journals)

Works written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges

• Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi (1942; translated into English as Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, 1981, ISBN 0-525-48035-8)
• Dos fantasías memorables (1946; "Two Memorable Fantasies")
• Un modelo para la muerte (1946; "A Model for Death")
• Cuentos breves y extraordinarios (1955; "Short and Amazing Stories")
• Crónicas de Bustos Domecq (1967; translated into English as Chronicles of Bustos Domecq, 1976, ISBN 0-525-47548-6)
• Libro del cielo y del infierno, (1960; "The Book of Heaven and Hell")
• Nuevos cuentos de Bustos Domecq (1977; "New Stories by Bustos Domecq")

Dos fantasías memorables and Un modelo para la muerte were originally published in private printings of only 300 copies. The first commercial printings were published in 1970.

Works written in collaboration with Silvina Ocampo

• Los que aman, odian (Those Who Love, Hate, 1946)

Screenplays written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges

• Los orilleros (1955, The Hoodlums)
• El paraíso de los creyentes (1955, The Paradise of the Believers)
• Invasión (1969, Invasion)
• The Others (1974)

External links

• Caricature and obituary at literatura.org (in Spanish)
• logosfreebooks.org biography of Bioy Casares (in Spanish)
• Spanish-language page on Bioy Casares, including links to some passages from his works
• Bioy renowned around the world. Published online in www.Argentina.ar (in English)

About The Invention of Morel

• Borges on Morel
• The opening to The Invention of Morel in English
• Analysis of Ruth Simms' translation of The Invention of Morel
• Review of 'The Invention of Morel' by Seamus Sweeney on nthposition.com
• Prologue to The Invention of Morel (in Spanish)
• Review of 'The Invention of Morel' on waggish.
• (Spanish) Adolfo Vásquez Rocca, La Invención de Morel; Defensa para sobrevivientes Luke nº 77, September 2006 – ISSN 1578-8644.
• (Spanish) Adolfo Vásquez Rocca, De la invención de Morel a los simulacros de Baudrillard; La nueva ecología de los mass media, Tendencias 21, September 17, 2006.