(1909-1994) novelist,short-story writer
Juan Carlos Onetti, the son of Carlos Onetti and Honoria Borges, was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. Considering that he would go on to become a major novelist, the most remarkable thing about Onetti’s childhood was that he never finished high school. He dropped out in his early teens and spent the next 20 years working at odd jobs and living the life of a bohemian. However, he continued to read constantly and educated himself in modern politics and literature.
Onetti was particularly fond of the novels of the Norwegian writer Knut hamsun. His first novel, El Pozo (The Pit, 1939), resembles Hamsun’s novel Hunger (1890). Both works follow an alienated protagonist (similar to protagonists found in works by Jean-Paul sartre and Albert camus) through an unfriendly city, concentrating on the main character’s thoughts and his disconnection from everyone around him. Present in Hunger but far more pronounced in El Pozo is the introduction of elements of fantasy in what is mainly a realistic narrative. El Pozo was completely unsuccessful when it was first published; now, it is recognized as a precursor to the magic realism movement and as perhaps the first truly modern Latin-American novel.
In La Vida Breve (A Brief Life, 1950), Onetti again focuses on a main character, Juan Maria Brausen, who is alienated from society and completely absorbed by his own thoughts. Brausen is himself a writer, and the reader watches him create narratives within the narrative. The novel takes place in the fictitious town of Santa Maria and combines realism with philosophical asides and elements of fantasy. Onetti would go on to write about Santa Maria again and again in his fiction. In this way, he resembles and is a precursor to garda mArquez. Both authors worked at not only telling distinct stories but also creating an imaginary world. Unlike the mythic grandeur of Garcia Marquez’s Macondo, Onetti’s imaginary world is restrained, tinged with the melancholy of philosophical dilemmas.
In 1974, Onetti was imprisoned by the Uruguayan government for selecting a controversial short story as the winner in a contest sponsored by the magazine Marcha. He was held for three months and finally released due to the outrage of the international community. He moved to Spain the next year and became a Spanish citizen.
Late in his life Onetti’s pessimism increased. In Dejemos hablar al viento (Let The Wind Speak, 1979), he once again revisited Santa Maria, this time narrating its destruction by fire and a cleansing wind. This act of symbolically uncreating the imaginary world he had been building all his life resonates with both sorrow and purification. It is a final abandonment of nostalgia and a preparation for death.
In 1980, Onetti was awarded the Cervantes prize, the most prestigious award given in the Spanish-speaking world. He was the first Latin-American novelist to hit on the particular mixture of fantasy, reality, and formal experimentation, which such writers as Carlos fuentes, Garcia Marquez, and Vargas llosa later developed into their own styles of magic realism. He is a writer of subtle humor and great philosophical insight.
Other Works by Juan Carlos Onetti
Goodbye and Stories. Translated by Daniel Balderston. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
Past Caring? Translated by Peter Bush. London: Quartet Books, 1995.
The Shipyard. Translated by Nick Caistor. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1992.
Works about Juan Carlos Onetti
Adams, Ian M. Three Authors of Alienation: Bombal, Onetti, Carpentier. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975.
San Roman, Gustavo. Onetti and Others: Comparative Essays on a Major Figure in Latin American Literature. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.
