Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne (December 28, 1932 – July 22, 1990), commonly calledManuel Puig, was anArgentine author. Among his best-known novels areLa traición de Rita Hayworth (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, 1968),Boquitas pintadas (Heartbreak Tango, 1969), andEl beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1976) which was adapted intothe film released in 1985, directed by the Argentine-Brazilian directorHéctor Babenco; anda Broadway musical in 1993.

Manuel Puig
Manuel Puig
Born	(1932-12-28)December 28, 1932 General Villegas, Argentina
Died	July 22, 1990(1990-07-22) (aged 57) Cuernavaca, Mexico
Occupation	Novelist,screenwriter
Period	1968-1990
Literary movement	Postboom,Post-modernist

Puig was born inGeneral Villegas,Buenos Aires Province. Since there was no high school in General Villegas, his parents sent him to Buenos Aires in 1946. Puig attended Colegio Ward in Villa Sarmiento (Morón County). This is when he began to read systematically, beginning with a collection of texts byNobel Prize winners. A classmate named Horacio, in whose home Puig rented accommodation when he first moved toBuenos Aires City introduced him to readings from the school ofpsychoanalysis. The first novel that he read wasThe Pastoral Symphony byAndré Gide; he also readHermann Hesse,Aldous Huxley,Jean-Paul Sartre, andThomas Mann.

Horacio also introduced Puig to European cinema. After seeingQuai des Orfèvres (1947), he decided that he wanted to be afilm director.^[1] To prepare for his chosen career, he learnedItalian,French, andGerman, which were considered "the new languages of cinema". He was advised to studyengineering in order to specialize insound-on-film but did not consider this to be the right choice. In 1950, he enrolled in theUniversity of Buenos AiresFaculty of Architecture but only took classes for six months. In 1951, Puig switched to theSchool of Philosophy. He was a diligent student, although he struggled with subjects such asLatin. When he graduated, he was already working in film as an archivist and editor inBuenos Aires and later, in Italy after winning a scholarship from theItalian Institute of Buenos Aires. However, the world ofHollywood and the stars that had captivated him during his childhood now disappointed him; the exceptions wereMarilyn Monroe andGloria Swanson.

A note in the magazineRadiolandia about the upcoming premiere of the filmDeshonra prompted Puig to try and meet its directorDaniel Tinayre, whose comedyLa vendedora de fantasías he admired. Since the director denied him access to the set, he spoke to the actress Fanny Navarro, who played the main role, without Tinayre's permission. He felt no sympathy for her since she supportedJuan Domingo Perón, who had prohibited the importation of American films intoArgentina. Navarro sent him to another actress of the cast, Herminia Franco, who got him in. Shortly after, he began to work in Alex laboratories.^{[citation needed]}

In 1953, Puig did hisobligatory military service in the area ofAeronautics, working as a translator.

In the 1960s, Manuel Puig moved back to Buenos Aires, where he penned his first major novel,La traición de Rita Hayworth. Because he had leftist political tendencies and also foresaw a rightist wave in Argentina, Puig moved toMexico in 1973, where he wrote his later works (includingEl beso de la mujer araña).

Much of Puig's work can be seen aspop art.^{[citation needed]} Perhaps due to his work in film and television, Puig managed to create a writing style that incorporated elements of these mediums, such asmontage and the use of multiple points of view. He also made much use of popular culture (for example,soap opera) in his works. In Latin American literary histories, he is presented as a writer who belongs to thePostboom andPost-modernist schools.

Puig lived in exile throughout most of his life. In 1989, Puig moved fromMexico City toCuernavaca, Mexico, where he died in 1990. In the previous months, he had stopped smoking on his doctor's orders and took daily walks but did not feel well at the altitude of Mexico. He also made sure to receive his care in a clinic near his house so he would not be far away from his mother, but for economic reasons and availability of contacts, he had access to higher quality medical attention. In the official biography,Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fiction, his close friendSuzanne Jill Levine writes that Puig had been in pain for a few days prior to being admitted to a hospital, where he was told what needed to be done.

On Saturday July 21, 1990, he was checked into Las Palmas Surgical Center for risk ofperitonitis. An emergency procedure was performed on his inflamedgallbladder, which was removed. While Puig was recovering after the surgery, he began to have respiratory problems; his lungs had filled with fluid, and he was becoming delirious. The medical team was unable to help Puig and they had to secure him to the bed. He died fromacute myocardial infarction (heart attack) at 4:55 a.m. on July 22, 1990.^[2]

His death leaked quickly through the media. Although he had a background of cardiac problems, the first public assumption was that he had died fromAIDS. It was soon ascertained that Manuel Puig did not haveHIV. Nevertheless, the public had already contested that fact several times.

Only six people attended his funeral service, including his mother, his friends Javier Labrada and Agustín Garcia Gil, and his colleagueTununa Mercado who happened to be on her way toXalapa city inVeracruz.

When Jorge Abelardo Ramos, the Argentine ambassador of Mexico was asked to speak to the media about the death of Manuel Puig, he responded by saying that he was not aware of the death of an Argentine with that name. Regardless, they had his body sent to theFederal District of Mexico for his funeral rites with the Writer's Society, and the ambassador arrived and gave a speech.

Manuel Puig's bodily remains were sent to Argentina a few days later and were placed in the Puig family tomb in the cemetery ofLa Plata.

The 2004 filmVereda Tropical (film), directed by Javier Torres, depicts the period during which Puig lived inRio de Janeiro,Brazil. The writer's role is played by the actor Fabio Aste.

Critics such as Pamela Bacarisse divide Puig's work into two groups: his early novels, which "attracted an enormous audience by weaving into his narratives the artistic 'sub-products' of mass culture"; and his later books, which have "lost their popular appeal" as they evidence "a depressing, even unpalatable, vision of life, no longer even superficially sweetened by palliatives as the mass-media elements are left behind".^[3]

Three translations of his work have been reprinted byDalkey Archive Press:

• 2009:Betrayed by Rita Hayworth
• 2010:The Buenos Aires Affair
• 2010:Heartbreak Tango

• 1968:La traición de Rita Hayworth
  • Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, Translator Suzanne Jill Levine, Dalkey Archive Press, 2009,ISBN 978-1-56478-530-5
• 1969:Boquitas pintadas; Seix Barral, 2004,ISBN 978-950-731-430-8
  • Heartbreak Tango
• 1973:The Buenos Aires Affair (The Buenos Aires Affair)
• 1976:El beso de la mujer araña; José Amícola, Jorge Panesi, Editors, Fondo De Cultura Economica, 2002,ISBN 978-84-89666-45-0
  • Kiss of the Spider Woman, reprint Random House, Inc., 1991,ISBN 978-0-679-72449-0
• 1979:Pubis angelical (Pubis Angelical) Seix Barral, 1979,ISBN 978-84-322-1379-3
• 1980:Maldición eterna a quien lea estas páginas (Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages)
• 1982:Sangre de amor correspondido (Blood of Requited Love)
• 1988:Cae la noche tropical (Tropical Night Falling)

^{[clarification needed]}

• 1983:Bajo un manto de estrellas. Beatriz Viterbo Editora. 1997.ISBN 978-950-845-060-9.
  • Under a Mantle of Stars: A Play in Two Acts,Lumen Books, 1985,ISBN 978-0-930829-00-1
• 1983:El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
• 1985:La cara del villano (The Face of the Villain)
• 1985:Recuerdo de Tijuana (Memories of Tijuana)
• 1991:Vivaldi: A Screenplay (inReview of Contemporary Fiction No.3)
• 1997:El misterio del ramo de rosas (1987) (Mystery of the Rose Bouquet)
• 1997:La tajada; Gardel, uma lembranca

• List of Argentine writers
• List of LGBT writers
• List of playwrights
• Latin American Literature

Sources

• Bacarisse, Pamela (1988).The Necessary Dream: A Study of the Novels of Manuel Puig. Cardiff:University of Wales Press.ISBN 978-0-7083-1011-3.
• Levine, Suzanne Jill (2000).Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. New York City:Farrar, Straus and Giroux.ISBN 978-0-374-28190-8.
• Vivancos Pérez, Ricardo F. "Una lectura queer de Manuel Puig: Blood and Sand en La traición de Rita Hayworth". Revista Iberoamericana. Vol. LXXII, Nos. 215-6 (2006): 633–50.

• Wheaton, Kathleen (1989)."Manuel Puig, The Art of Fiction No. 114".The Paris Review. Winter II 1989 (Winter II).
• A Conversation with Manuel Puig (Interview took place during a weekend in September 1979, after Puig was part of a Congress of Hispanic-American Writers in Medellin, Colombia.)
• Manuel Puig: Una aproximación biográfica. Eine Multimedia-Biographie auf CD-ROM. Buenos Aires 2008.ISBN 978-987-05-4332-9
• Manuel Puig Corral recorded at the Library of Congress for the Hispanic Division’s audio literary archive on March 25, 1977