He is considered to be one of the most innovative and original authors of his time, a master of history,poetic prose, and short stories as well as the author of many groundbreaking novels, a prolific author who inaugurated a new way of making literature in theHispanic world by breaking classical molds. He is perhaps best known as the author of multiple narratives that attempt to defy thetemporal linearity of traditional literature.
Cortázar lived his childhood, adolescence, and incipient maturity in Argentina. In 1951, he settled in France for what would prove to be more than three decades. However, he also lived in Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.
Julio Cortázar at two years of age (Switzerland; 1916).
Julio Cortázar was born on 26 August 1914, inIxelles,[2] a municipality ofBrussels, Belgium. According to biographer Miguel Herráez, his parents, Julio José Cortázar and María Herminia Descotte, were Argentine citizens, and his father was attached to the Argentine diplomatic service in Belgium.[3]
At the time of Cortázar's birth, Belgium was occupied by the German troops ofKaiserWilhelm II. After German troops arrived in Belgium, Cortázar and his family moved toZürich where María Herminia's parents, Victoria Gabel and Louis Descotte (a French national), were waiting inneutral territory. The family group spent the next two years in Switzerland, first inZürich, thenGeneva, before moving for a short period toBarcelona. The Cortázars settled outside ofBuenos Aires by the end of 1919.[4]
Cortázar's father left when Julio was six, and the family had no further contact with him.[5] Cortázar spent most of his childhood inBanfield, a suburb south of Buenos Aires, with his mother and younger sister. The home in Banfield, with its backyard, was a source of inspiration for some of his stories.[6] Despite this, in a letter to Graciela M. de Solá on 4 December 1963, he described this period of his life as "full of servitude, excessive touchiness, terrible and frequent sadness." He was a sickly child and spent much of his childhood in bed reading. His mother, whospoke several languages and was a great reader herself, introduced her son to the works ofJules Verne, whom Cortázar admired for the rest of his life. In the magazinePlural (issue 44, Mexico City, May 1975) he wrote: "I spent my childhood in a haze full of goblins and elves, with a sense of space and time that was different from everybody else's".
Cortázar obtained a qualification as an elementary school teacher at the age of 18. He would later pursue higher education inphilosophy andlanguages at theUniversity of Buenos AiresFaculty of Philosophy and Letters, but left for financial reasons without receiving a degree.[7] According to biographerMontes-Bradley, Cortázar taught in at least two high schools in Buenos Aires Province, one in the city ofChivilcoy, the other inBolivar. In 1938, using the pseudonym of Julio Denis, he self-published a volume ofsonnets,Presencia.[8] He later repudiated this work, saying in a 1977 interview for Spanish television that publishing it was his only transgression to the principle of not publishing any books until he was convinced that what was written in them was what he meant to say.[9]
In 1944, he became professor ofFrench literature at theNational University of Cuyo inMendoza, but owing to political pressure fromPeronists, he resigned the position in June 1946. He subsequently worked as a translator and as director of the Cámara Argentina del Libro, a trade organization.[10]
In 1951, Cortázar immigrated to France, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, though he travelled widely. From 1952 onwards, he worked intermittently forUNESCO as a translator. He wrote most of his major works in Paris or inSaignon in the south of France, where he also maintained a home. In later years he became actively engaged in opposing abuses of human rights in Latin America, and was a supporter of theSandinista revolution inNicaragua as well asFidel Castro's Cuban revolution andSalvador Allende's socialist government in Chile.[12]
Cortázar had three long-term romantic relationships with women. The first was with Aurora Bernárdez, an Argentine translator, whom he married in 1953. They separated in 1968[13] when he became involved with the Lithuanian writer, editor, translator, and filmmakerUgnė Karvelis, whom he never formally married, and who reportedly stimulated Cortázar's interest in politics,[14] although his political sensibilities had already been awakened by a visit to Cuba in 1963, the first of multiple trips that he would make to that country throughout the remainder of his life. In 1981 he married Canadian writerCarol Dunlop. After Dunlop's death in 1982, Aurora Bernárdez accompanied Cortázar during his final illness and, in accordance with his longstanding wishes, inherited the rights to all his works.[15][16]
In August 1981, he suffered a gastric hemorrhage; his life was miraculously saved, but this did not prevent him from continuing to write. PresidentFrançois Mitterrand granted him French nationality. In 1983, after the restoration of democracy in Argentina, Cortázar made one last trip to his homeland,where he was welcomed by his admirers, who would stop him in the street or ask for autographs, in contrast to the indifference of the authorities—President Raúl Alfonsín refused to see him.[17][18][19]
Cortázar died in Paris in 1984, and is interred in thecimetière du Montparnasse. The cause of his death was reported to beleukemia, though some sources state that he died from AIDS as a result of receiving a blood transfusion.[20][21]
Birthplace of Julio Cortazar in Brussels and a small square opposite. Bust of the Argentine sculptor Edmund Valladares.
Cortázar photographed inBuenos Aires in December 1983, after 10 years of exile in FranceArtigas 3246, Agronomía neighborhood. Last address that Cortázar had in Argentina.
Julio Cortázar started writing in his earliest days at school. His first printed book was a collection ofsonnets heavily influenced byStéphane Mallarmé calledPresencia ("Presence"), published under thepseudonym Julio Denis in 1938. He also published a few stories using the same pseudonym. His first major work to be published under his real name wasLos Reyes (1949, "The Monarchs"), a poetic drama that passed almost unnoticed. In the late forties Cortázar'sshort stories however began to attract interest, particularly after the storyCasa Tomada ("House taken over") was published in a literary magazine edited byJorge Luis Borges.[22]
Cortázar became notable for his numerous short stories, collected in such volumes asBestiario (1951),Final del juego (1956), andLas armas secretas (1959) that established his reputation as a writer of short fiction.[22] Cortázar's stories characteristically includefantastic andmythical elements where the protagonists in initially ordinary situations find themselves in strange or horrific situations.[22] In 1967, English translations byPaul Blackburn of stories selected from these volumes were published byPantheon Books asEnd of the Game and Other Stories; it was later re-titledBlow-up and Other Stories. Cortázar published four novels during his lifetime:Los premios (The Winners, 1960),Hopscotch (Rayuela, 1963),62: A Model Kit (62 Modelo para Armar, 1968), andLibro de Manuel (A Manual for Manuel, 1973). Except forLos premios, which was translated by Elaine Kerrigan, these novels have been translated into English byGregory Rabassa. Two other novels,El examen andDivertimento, though written before 1960, only appeared posthumously.
Hopscotch, the most significant of his novels, established Cortázar as one of the leading writers of theLatin American Boom in the 1960s and has been called the greatest Latin American novel of the 20th century.[23] Other notable works from this period includeHistorias de cronopios y famas (1962), a book of brief and eccentric prose passages that resists categorization, and an expandedFinal del Juego (1964) including ten additional stories.[24]
Cortázar also published poetry, drama, and various works of non-fiction, some of which relate to or accompany visual works.[25] In the 1960s, working with the artist José Silva, he created two almanac-books orlibros-almanaque,La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos andÚltimo Round, which combined various texts written by Cortázar with photographs, engravings, and other illustrations, in the manner of thealmanaques del mensajero that had been widely circulated in rural Argentina during his childhood.[30] One of his last works was a collaboration with Carol Dunlop,The Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, which relates, partly in mock-heroic style, the couple's extended expedition along the autoroute from Paris toMarseille in aVolkswagen camper nicknamed Fafner. As a translator, he completed Spanish-language renderings ofRobinson Crusoe,Marguerite Yourcenar's novelMémoires d'Hadrien, and the complete prose works ofEdgar Allan Poe.[31]
Michelangelo Antonioni's filmBlowup (1966) was inspired by Cortázar's story "Las babas del diablo", which in turn was based on a photograph taken by Chilean photographerSergio Larraín during a shoot outside ofNotre Dame Cathedral in Paris.[32] Cortázar also made a cameo appearance in Antonioni's film, playing a homeless man who has his photograph taken byDavid Hemmings' character.[33] Cortázar's story "La autopista del sur" ("The Southern Thruway") influenced another film of the 1960s,Jean-Luc Godard'sWeek End (1967).[34] The filmmakerManuel Antín has directed three films based on Cortázar stories,Cartas de mamá,Circe andIntimidad de los parques.[35]
Chilean novelistRoberto Bolaño cited Cortázar as a key influence on his novelThe Savage Detectives: "To say that I'm permanently indebted to the work ofBorges and Cortázar is obvious."[36]
Puerto Rican novelistGiannina Braschi used Cortázar's story "Las babas del diablo" as a springboard for the chapter called "Blow-up" in her bilingual novelYo-Yo Boing! (1998), which features scenes with Cortázar's characters La Maga and Rocamadour.[37] Cortázar is mentioned and spoken highly of inRabih Alameddine's 1998 novel,Koolaids: The Art of War.
North American novelistDeena Metzger cites Cortázar as co-author of her novelDoors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn,[38] written twenty years after his death.
InBuenos Aires, a school, a public library, and a square in thePalermo neighbourhood carry Cortázar's name.
Graffiti onYouTube, 2005. Short movie based on Julio Cortázar's short story "Graffiti". Directed by Pako González.
Graffiti, 2006. Short movie based on Julio Cortázar's short story "Graffiti". Directed by Vano Burduli[1][2]
"Mentiras Piadosas" (released in English asMade Up Memories), 2009. Feature film by Diego Sabanés, based on the short story "The Health of the Sick" and other short stories by Julio Cortázar.
^Sommer, Doris, "Grammar Trouble for Cortázar", inProceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 211.
^Herráez, Miguel.Julio Cortázar, Una Biografía Revisada Alrevés, 2011,ISBN9788415098034, p. 242.
^Jean Franco, "Comic Stripping: Cortázar in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", inCritical Passions: Selected Essays, eds. Mary Louise Pratt and Kathleen Newman, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999, p. 416.
^Roberto Bolaño,Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998–2003, trans. Natasha Wimmer, New York: New Directions, 2011, 353.
^Debra A. Castillo, editor, Redreaming America: Toward a Bilingual American Culture, "Language Games," by Ilan Stavans, pp. 172–186, SUNY, New York, 2005.
^Deena Metzger,Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn, Red Hen Press, Pasadena CA, 2004
Julio Cortázar (Modern Critical Views). Bloom, Harold, 2005
Schmidt-Cruz, Cynthia (2004).Mothers, Lovers, and Others: the short stories of Julio Cortázar. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.ISBN978-0-7914-5955-3.
Julio Cortázar (Bloom's Major Short Story Writers). Bloom, Harold, 2004
Weiss, Jason (2003).The Lights of Home: a century of Latin American writers in Paris. New York: Routledge.ISBN978-0-415-94013-9.
