Juan Carlos Onetti

Juan Carlos Onetti
Juan Carlos Onetti
	Portrait of the writer
Born	July 1, 1909; Montevideo, Uruguay
Died	May 30, 1994 (aged 84); Madrid, Spain
Occupation	Journalist, Novelist
Nationality	Uruguayan

Juan Carlos Onetti Borges (July 1, 1909 – May 30, 1994) was a Uruguayan novelist and author of short stories.

Early life[]

Onetti was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was the son of Carlos Onetti, a customs official of Irish descent, and Honoria Borges, a Brazilian who belonged to a Brazilian aristocratic family from the state of Rio Grande do Sul.^[1] He had two siblings: an older brother Raul, and a younger sister Rachel. He remembered his childhood as a happy time, describing his parents as a very close and loving couple with their children.

The original surname of his family was O'Nety (of Irish or Scottish origin). The writer himself commented: "the first to come here, my great-great-grandfather, was English, born in Gibraltar. My grandfather was the one who italianized the name".^[2]

Career[]

A high school drop-out, Onetti's first novel, El pozo, published in 1939, met with his close friends' immediate acclaim, as well as from some writers and journalists of his time. 500 copies of the book were printed, most of them left to rot at the only bookstore that sold it, Barreiro (the book was not reprinted until the 60's, with an introduction and preliminary study by Ángel Rama). Aged 30, Onetti was already working as editing secretary of the famous weekly Uruguayan newspaper Marcha. He had lived for some years in Buenos Aires, where he published short stories and wrote cinema critiques for the local media, and met and befriended the notorious novelist and journalist Roberto Arlt, author of the novels El juguete rabioso, Los siete locos, Los lanzallamas.

He went on to become one of Latin America's most distinguished writers, earning Uruguay National Literature Prize in 1962. He was considered a senior member of the 'Generation of 45', a Uruguayan intellectual and literary movement: Carlos Maggi, Manuel Flores Mora, Ángel Rama, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, Idea Vilariño, Carlos Real de Azúa, , , Mauricio Muller, José Pedro Díaz, Amanda Berenguer, , Mario Benedetti, Ida Vitale, Líber Falco, , among others.^[3]

In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen 's short story El guardaespaldas (i.e. "The bodyguard") as the winner of Marcha's annual literary contest. Due to a series of misunderstandings (and the need to fill some space in the following day's edition), El guardaespaldas was published in Marcha, although it had been widely agreed among them that they shouldn't and wouldn't do so, knowing this would be the perfect excuse for the military to intervene, considering the subject of the story (the interior monologue of a top-rank military officer who recounts his murders and atrocious behavior, much as it was happening with the functioning regime).

Onetti left his native country (and his much-loved city of Montevideo) after being imprisoned for 6 months in Colonia Etchepare, a mental institution. A long list of world-famous writers -including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Benedetti – signed open letters addressed to the military government of Uruguay.

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, the violin player . There he continued his career as a writer, being awarded the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Cervantes. He remained in Madrid until his death there in 1994. He is interred in the Cementerio de la Almudena in Madrid.

Writing awards[]

Uruguay National Literature Prize (1962)
William Faulkner Foundation Ibero-American Award (1963)
Italian-Latin American Institute Prize (1972)
Premio Cervantes (1980)

Selected works[]

El pozo (1939) – The Pit
Tierra de nadie (1941) – No Man's Land
Para esta noche (1943) – Tonight
La vida breve (1950) – A Brief Life
Un sueño realizado y otros cuentos (1951)
Los adioses (1954)
Para una tumba sin nombre (1959) – A Grave with No Name
La cara de la desgracia (1960)
El astillero (1961) – The Shipyard
Juntacadáveres (1964) – Body Snatcher
Tres novelas (1967)
Cuentos completos (1967)
Los rostros del amor (1968)
Novelas y cuentos cortos completos (1968)
Obras completas (1970)
La muerte y la niña (1973)
Cuentos completos (1974)
Tiempo de abrazar (1974)
Réquiem por Faulkner (1975)
Tan triste como ella y otros cuentos (1976)
Dejemos hablar al viento (1979) – Let the Wind Speak
Cuentos secretos (1986)
Presencia y otros cuentos (1986)
Cuando entonces (1987)
Goodbyes and Other Stories (1990)
Cuando ya no importe (1993) – Past Caring

Film adaptations[]

Uruguayan director Alvaro Brechner adapted "Jacob y el Otro" for his 2009 film Bad day to go fishing ("Mal día para pescar"). The film premiered at 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and was the Uruguayan candidate for Oscar Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. There is an Argentinian film based on his short story "El infierno tan temido."

Legacy[]

An important literary award from Montevideo is named after him: Concurso Literario Juan Carlos Onetti.

References[]

^ http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/o/onetti.htm
^ Harss, Luis. "Juan Carlos Onetti, o las sombras en la pared Luis Harss: Los nuestros". www.literatura.us (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 October 2018.
^ Generación del 45: severa en la crítica y brillante en la creación. Archived 2012-09-22 at the Wayback Machine

External links[]

http://www.onetti.net
LookSmart's FindArticles – Projection as a narrative technique in Juan Carlos Onetti's 'Goodbyes'" – Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1994, by Mary-Lee Sullivan
A Reign Not of This World: On Juan Carlos Onetti by Jonathan Blitzer
Centenario Onetti: Nora Catelli, Andrés Ehrenhaus y Edgardo Dobri en Canal-L de Barcelona
Marcha
The Tender Stories of Juan Carlos Onetti, a Lost Giant of Latin-American Literature

[1] ttp://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/o/onetti.htm

[2] Harss, Luis. "Juan Carlos Onetti, o las sombras en la pared Luis Harss: Los nuestros". www.literatura.us (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 October 2018.

[3] Generación del 45: severa en la crítica y brillante en la creación. Archived 2012-09-22 at the Wayback Machine

[1]

[2]

[3]

show v t Laureates of the Miguel de Cervantes Prize
1970s	1976: Jorge Guillén 1977: Alejo Carpentier 1978: Dámaso Alonso 1979: Jorge Luis Borges and Gerardo Diego
1980s	1980: Juan Carlos Onetti 1981: Octavio Paz 1982: Luis Rosales 1983: Rafael Alberti 1984: Ernesto Sabato 1985: Gonzalo Torrente Ballester 1986: Antonio Buero Vallejo 1987: Carlos Fuentes 1988: María Zambrano 1989: Augusto Roa Bastos
1990s	1990: Adolfo Bioy Casares 1991: Francisco Ayala 1992: Dulce María Loynaz 1993: Miguel Delibes 1994: Mario Vargas Llosa 1995: Camilo José Cela 1996: José García Nieto 1997: Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1998: José Hierro 1999: Jorge Edwards
2000s	2000: Francisco Umbral 2001: Álvaro Mutis 2002: José Jiménez Lozano 2003: Gonzalo Rojas 2004: Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio 2005: Sergio Pitol 2006: Antonio Gamoneda 2007: Juan Gelman 2008: Juan Marsé 2009: José Emilio Pacheco
2010s	2010: Ana María Matute 2011: Nicanor Parra 2012: José Manuel Caballero Bonald 2013: Elena Poniatowska 2014: Juan Goytisolo 2015: Fernando del Paso 2016: Eduardo Mendoza 2017: Sergio Ramírez 2018: Ida Vitale 2019: Joan Margarit
2020s	2020: Francisco Brines

show v t Recipients of the Mondello Prize
Single Prize for Literature: (1975) • Achille Campanile (1976) • Günter Grass (1977)
Special Jury Prize: (1975) • Stefano D'Arrigo (1977) • (1978) • Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1979) • Pietro Consagra (1980) • Ignazio Buttitta, (1983) • Leonardo Sciascia (1985) • (1987) • (1988) • Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, (1990) • Fernanda Pivano (1992) • (1993) • , , , , (1995) • , , , (1996) • Khushwant Singh (1997) • Javier Marías (1998) • (2001) • Luciano Erba (2002) • (2003) • (2006) • (2007) • Enrique Vila-Matas (2009) • (2010)
First narrative work: (1978) • Fausta Garavini (1979)
First poetic work: (1978) • (1979)
Prize for foreign literature: Milan Kundera (1978) • N. Scott Momaday (1979) • Juan Carlos Onetti (1980) • Tadeusz Konwicki (1981)
Prize for foreign poetry: (1978) • Joseph Brodsky (1979) • Juan Gelman (1980) • Gyula Illyés (1981)
First work: Valerio Magrelli (1980) • , Stefano Simoncelli, , Laura Mancinelli (1981) • Jolanda Insana (1982) • Daniele Del Giudice (1983) • Aldo Busi (1984) • , (1985) • , (1986) • , (1987) • Edoardo Albinati, (1988) • Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri (1990) • (1991) • , Nelida Milani (1992) • Silvana Grasso, (1993) • (1994) • (1995) • , Tiziano Scarpa (1996) • (1997) • (1998) • (1999) • (2000) • (2001) • , (2003) • (2004) • (2005) • (2006) • (2007) • (2008) • (2009) • (2010)
Foreign author: Alain Robbe-Grillet (1982) • Thomas Bernhard (1983) • Adolfo Bioy Casares (1984) • Bernard Malamud (1985) • Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1986) • Doris Lessing (1987) • V. S. Naipaul (1988) • Octavio Paz (1989) • Christa Wolf (1990) • Kurt Vonnegut (1991) • Bohumil Hrabal (1992) • Seamus Heaney (1993) • J. M. Coetzee (1994) • (1995) • David Grossman (1996) • Philippe Jaccottet (1998) • Don DeLillo (1999) • Aleksandar Tišma (2000) • Nuruddin Farah (2001) • Per Olov Enquist (2002) • Adunis (2003) • Les Murray (2004) • Magda Szabó (2005) • Uwe Timm (2006) • Bapsi Sidhwa (2007) • (2009) • Edmund White (2010) • Javier Cercas (2011) • Elizabeth Strout (2012) • Péter Esterházy (2013) • Joe R. Lansdale (2014) • Emmanuel Carrère (2015) • Marilynne Robinson (2016) • Cees Nooteboom (2017)
Italian Author: Alberto Moravia (1982) • Vittorio Sereni alla memoria (1983) • Italo Calvino (1984) • Mario Luzi (1985) • Paolo Volponi (1986) • Luigi Malerba (1987) • (1988) • Giovanni Macchia (1989) • Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa (1990) • Andrea Zanzotto (1991) • Ottiero Ottieri (1992) • Attilio Bertolucci (1993) • Luigi Meneghello (1994) • , (1995) • (1996) • , Giovanni Raboni (1997) • Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Alessandro Parronchi (1999) • Elio Bartolini (2000) • (2001) • Andrea Camilleri (2002) • , Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger (2003) • Maurizio Bettini, , Nelo Risi (2004) • pr. , sec. , ter. Giuseppe Conte (2005) • pr. , sec. Giulio Angioni (2006) • pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. , ter. (2007) • pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga (2008) • pr. , sec. , ter. Gregorio Scalise (2009) • pr. , sec. , ter. (2010) • pr. , sec. , ter. Igiaba Scego (2011) • pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. , ter. (2012) • pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. (2013) • pr. , sec. , ter. (2014) • pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. , ter. (2015) • pr. Marcello Fois, sec. , ter. Romana Petri (2016) • pr. Stefano Massini, sec. , ter. (2017)
"Five Continents" Award: Kōbō Abe, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Germaine Greer, Wilson Harris, José Saramago (1992) • Kenzaburō Ōe (1993) • Stephen Spender (1994) • Thomas Keneally, Alberto Arbasino (1996) • Margaret Atwood, André Brink, David Malouf, Romesh Gunesekera, Christoph Ransmayr (1997)
"Palermo bridge for Europe" Award: Dacia Maraini (1999), Premio Palermo ponte per il Mediterraneo Alberto Arbasino (2000)
"Ignazio Buttitta" Award: (2003) • (2005) • (2006) • (2007)
Supermondello Tiziano Scarpa (2009) • Michela Murgia (2010) • (2011) • (2012) • Valerio Magrelli (2013) • (2014) • (2015) • Romana Petri (2016) • Stefano Massini (2017)
Special award of the President: Ibrahim al-Koni (2009) • (2010) • (2011)
Poetry prize: (2010)
Translation Award: (2010)
Identity and dialectal literatures award: e Marco Paolini (2010)
Essays Prize: (2010)
Mondello for Multiculturality Award: Kim Thúy (2011)
Mondello Youths Award: Claudia Durastanti (2011) • Edoardo Albinati (2012) • (2017)
"Targa Archimede", Premio all'Intelligenza d'Impresa: Enzo Sellerio (2011)
Prize for Literary Criticism: (2012) • Maurizio Bettini (2013) • (2014) • (2015) • Serena Vitale (2016) • (2017)
Award for best motivation: (2012)
Special award for travel literature: (2013)
Special Award 40 Years of Mondello: Gipi (2014)

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