Juan Carlos Onetti

Uruguayan writer

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Juan Carlos Onetti
Onetti in 1981
Born	July 1, 1909 Montevideo, Uruguay
Died	May 30, 1994(1994-05-30) (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, and Honoria Borges, 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.

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,^[3] 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 1960s, 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 novelist and journalist Roberto Arlt, author of the novels El juguete rabioso, Los siete locos, Los lanzallamas.^[4]

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.^[5]

In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen Nelson Marra'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 do so due to its sensitive political themes.^[6]

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.^[7]

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, violinist Dorothea Muhr.^[8] 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.^[9] He is interred in the Cementerio de la Almudena in Madrid.^[10]

Writing awards

Uruguay National Literature Prize (1962)^[11]
William Faulkner Foundation Ibero-American Award (1963)^[12]
Italian-Latin American Institute Prize (1972)
Premio Cervantes (1980)

Selected works (^[13])

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

^ "Biografia de Juan Carlos Onetti".
^ Harss, Luis. "Juan Carlos Onetti, o las sombras en la pared Luis Harss: Los nuestros". www.literatura.us (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 October 2018.
^ Ardila, J. A. G., ed. (2015). The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature : From the Sixteenth Century to the Neopicaresque. J. A. G. Ardila. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 241. ISBN 978-1-107-03165-4.
^ Magill, Frank N (1984). Critical Survey of Long Fiction: Foreign language series. Vol. 3. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press. p. 1209. ISBN 978-0-89356-369-1.
^ Generación del 45: severa en la crítica y brillante en la creación. Archived 2012-09-22 at the Wayback Machine
^ King, John (2007). The Role of Mexico's Plural in Latin American Literary and Political Culture. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 99–101. ISBN 978-0-2306-0968-6.
^ Santoni, Pedro (2008). Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Latin America : From the Wars of Independence to the Central American Civil Wars. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 240. ISBN 9780313055003.
^ Morse, Kimberly J., ed. (2022). The Americas : An Encyclopedia of Culture and Society. Kimberly J. Morse. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Press. p. 925. ISBN 978-1-4408-5238-1.
^ Rocca, Pablo (2005). El 45 : entrevistas/testimonios (in Spanish). Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental. p. 19. ISBN 978-9974-103-66-5.
^ International Institute of Ibero-American Literature (1939). "Revista iberoamericana". Revista iberoamericana (in Spanish). 60 (168–169): 1185. ISSN 0034-9631 – via WorldCat.
^ Kadir, Djelal (1977). Juan Carlos Onetti. Boston: Twayne Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 9780805763102.
^ Cohn, Deborah; Smith, Jon, eds. (2004). Look Away! : The U.S. South in New World Studies. Donald E. Pease, George B. Handley. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 415. ISBN 978-0-8223-8577-6.
^ Smith, Verity (2014). Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Routledge. p. 442. ISBN 978-1-57958-252-4.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Juan Carlos Onetti.

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

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

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

v t e Recipients of the Mondello Prize
Single Prize for Literature: Bartolo Cattafi (1975) • Achille Campanile (1976) • Günter Grass (1977)
Special Jury Prize: Denise McSmith (1975) • Stefano D'Arrigo (1977) • Jurij Trifonov (1978) • Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1979) • Pietro Consagra (1980) • Ignazio Buttitta, Angelo Maria e Ela Ripellino (1983) • Leonardo Sciascia (1985) • Wang Meng (1987) • Mikhail Gorbaciov (1988) • Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, Lu Tongliu (1990) • Fernanda Pivano (1992) • Associazione Scrittori Cinesi (1993) • Dong Baoucum, Fan Boaci, Wang Huanbao, Shi Peide, Chen Yuanbin (1995) • Xu Huainzhong, Xiao Xue, Yu Yougqnan, Qin Weinjung (1996) • Khushwant Singh (1997) • Javier Marías (1998) • Francesco Burdin (2001) • Luciano Erba (2002) • Isabella Quarantotti De Filippo (2003) • Marina Rullo (2006) • Andrea Ceccherini (2007) • Enrique Vila-Matas (2009) • Francesco Forgione (2010)
First narrative work: Carmelo Samonà (1978) • Fausta Garavini (1979)
First poetic work: Giovanni Giuga (1978) • Gilberto Sacerdoti (1979)
Prize for foreign literature: Milan Kundera (1978) • N. Scott Momaday (1979) • Juan Carlos Onetti (1980) • Tadeusz Konwicki (1981)
Prize for foreign poetry: Jannis Ritsos (1978) • Joseph Brodsky (1979) • Juan Gelman (1980) • Gyula Illyés (1981)
First work: Valerio Magrelli (1980) • Ferruccio Benzoni, Stefano Simoncelli, Walter Valeri, Laura Mancinelli (1981) • Jolanda Insana (1982) • Daniele Del Giudice (1983) • Aldo Busi (1984) • Elisabetta Rasy, Dario Villa (1985) • Marco Lodoli, Angelo Mainardi (1986) • Marco Ceriani, Giovanni Giudice (1987) • Edoardo Albinati, Silvana La Spina (1988) • Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri (1990) • Anna Cascella (1991) • Marco Caporali, Nelida Milani (1992) • Silvana Grasso, Giulio Mozzi (1993) • Ernesto Franco (1994) • Roberto Deidier (1995) • Giuseppe Quatriglio, Tiziano Scarpa (1996) • Fabrizio Rondolino (1997) • Alba Donati (1998) • Paolo Febbraro (1999) • Evelina Santangelo (2000) • Giuseppe Lupo (2001) • Giovanni Bergamini, Simona Corso (2003) • Adriano Lo Monaco (2004) • Piercarlo Rizzi (2005) • Francesco Fontana (2006) • Paolo Fallai (2007) • Luca Giachi (2008) • Carlo Carabba (2009) • Gabriele Pedullà (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) • Vladimir Vojnovič (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) • Viktor Yerofeyev (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) • Oreste del Buono (1988) • Giovanni Macchia (1989) • Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa (1990) • Andrea Zanzotto (1991) • Ottiero Ottieri (1992) • Attilio Bertolucci (1993) • Luigi Meneghello (1994) • Fernando Bandini, Michele Perriera (1995) • Nico Orengo (1996) • Giuseppe Bonaviri, Giovanni Raboni (1997) • Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Alessandro Parronchi (1999) • Elio Bartolini (2000) • Roberto Alajmo (2001) • Andrea Camilleri (2002) • Andrea Carraro, Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger (2003) • Maurizio Bettini, Giorgio Montefoschi, Nelo Risi (2004) • pr. Raffaele Nigro, sec. Maurizio Cucchi, ter. Giuseppe Conte (2005) • pr. Paolo Di Stefano, sec. Giulio Angioni (2006) • pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. Toni Maraini, ter. Andrea Di Consoli (2007) • pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga (2008) • pr. Mario Desiati, sec. Osvaldo Guerrieri, ter. Gregorio Scalise (2009) • pr. Lorenzo Pavolini, sec. Roberto Cazzola, ter. (2010) • pr. Eugenio Baroncelli, sec. Milo De Angelis, ter. Igiaba Scego (2011) • pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. Paolo Di Paolo, ter. Davide Orecchio (2012) • pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. Walter Siti (2013) • pr. Irene Chias, sec. Giorgio Falco, ter. Francesco Pecoraro (2014) • pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. Letizia Muratori, ter. Marco Missiroli (2015) • pr. Marcello Fois, sec. Emanuele Tonon, ter. Romana Petri (2016) • pr. Stefano Massini, sec. Alessandro Zaccuri, ter. Alessandra Sarchi (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: Nino De Vita (2003) • Attilio Lolini (2005) • Roberto Rossi Precerotti (2006) • Silvia Bre (2007)
Supermondello Tiziano Scarpa (2009) • Michela Murgia (2010) • Eugenio Baroncelli (2011) • Davide Orecchio (2012) • Valerio Magrelli (2013) • Giorgio Falco (2014) • Marco Missiroli (2015) • Romana Petri (2016) • Stefano Massini (2017)
Special award of the President: Ibrahim al-Koni (2009) • Emmanuele Maria Emanuele (2010) • Antonio Calabrò (2011)
Poetry prize: Antonio Riccardi (2010)
Translation Award: Evgenij Solonovic (2010)
Identity and dialectal literatures award: Gialuigi Beccaria e Marco Paolini (2010)
Essays Prize: Marzio Barbagli (2010)
Mondello for Multiculturality Award: Kim Thúy (2011)
Mondello Youths Award: Claudia Durastanti (2011) • Edoardo Albinati (2012) • Alessandro Zaccuri (2017)
"Targa Archimede", Premio all'Intelligenza d'Impresa: Enzo Sellerio (2011)
Prize for Literary Criticism: Salvatore Silvano Nigro (2012) • Maurizio Bettini (2013) • Enrico Testa (2014) • Ermanno Cavazzoni (2015) • Serena Vitale (2016) • Antonio Prete (2017)
Award for best motivation: Simona Gioè (2012)
Special award for travel literature: Marina Valensise (2013)
Special Award 40 Years of Mondello: Gipi (2014)

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