Estela Canto (September 4, 1915 – June 3, 1994) was an Argentine writer, journalist, and translator best known for her relationship with

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

Life

Canto was the descendant of an old

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

an family. Her ancestors included some important military men. Her brother Patricio Canto was also a writer, and authored the essay ''El caso Ortega y Gasset'' about the Spanish philosopher. Estela held various jobs during the late 1930s and early 1940s, including as a dancer-for-hire at a local dance hall, where men would pay women "by the dance" to serve as their partners. In 1944, at the house of Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, Canto was introduced to

. Borges was, at this time, already well regarded in literary circles. Initially he took little notice of Canto. Though she observed him with admiration and curiosity, she had no interest in forming romantic attachments to intellectuals. On their second meeting at Bioy's house, Borges asked her out. After an evening of dancing and chatting they discovered, among other things, a common admiration for

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

. Borges fell in love with Canto and wrote her a number of romantic letters, which Canto would later publish in her 1989 book about their relationship. In this book, Canto said of their relationship: Borges' mother Leonor Acevedo Suárez disliked Canto on account of her sexual liberality and casual affairs with men. Nevertheless, Borges proposed to her. She replied: Borges' infatuation with Canto faded with time. Many years later, they reestablished contact and became friends. Borges dedicated his collection '' The Aleph'' to Canto and gave her the original manuscript as a gift. According to her memoir of their relationship, she responded that the manuscript would be worth a lot more after his death; Borges responded, "If I was a gentlemen, in this moment I would go to the bathroom and you would hear a gunshot." It is widely assumed that Canto was the inspiration for the character of Beatriz Viterbo in the central story " The Aleph", the narrator's unrequited love. Canto sold this manuscript to

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

for thirty thousand dollars, and it was later bought at auction by the National Library of Spain. Canto contributed numerous translations to '' Sur'', including selections from ''

In Search of Lost Time ''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...

''.

Work

The bulk of Canto's work describes life in Buenos Aires in the time before Peronism. In 1989 she published ''Borges a contraluz'', a biography of the author in which she recounted various intimate details of their relationship. In 1999 this book was adapted into a film, directed by Javier Torre and titled ''Estela Canto, un amor de Borges''.Cinenacional.com
/ref> * 1945 ''El muro de mármol'' ("The Marble Wall") * 1950 ''El retrato y la imagen'' ("The Portrait and the Image") * 1953 ''El hombre del crepúsculo'' ("The Man of the Evening") * 1956 ''El estanque'' ("The Pond") * 1962 ''La noche y el barro'' ("The Night and the Mud") * 1966 ''Isabel entre las plantas'' ("Isabel among the Plants") * 1973 ''Los otros, las máscaras'' ("Others, Masks") * 1976 ''La hora detenida'' ("The Delayed Moment") * 1978 ''El jazmín negro'' ("The Black Jasmine") * 1980 ''Ronda nocturna'' ("Night Patrol") * 1982 ''Detrás de la medialuna'' ("Behind the Half-Moon", written under the pseudonym of Evelyn Clift) * 1989 ''Borges a contraluz'' ("Silhouette of Borges")

Awards

* 1945 Premio Municipal for ''El muro de mármol'' * 1945 Premio Imprena López por ''El muro de mármol''

References

External links

*
''Estela Canto: a portrait''
by Andrés Rivera. Diario Página/12, 20 April 2008. *
''Estela Canto: the sabotage of "genre" in a poetics of vision''
by María Rosa Lojo. Revista Anales de Literatura Hispanoamericana, 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Canto, Estela 1915 births 1994 deaths Argentine communists Argentine people of Uruguayan descent Argentine women journalists Argentine women writers Jorge Luis Borges Writers from Buenos Aires 20th-century Argentine writers 20th-century Argentine translators 20th-century women writers English–Spanish translators

Life

Work

Awards

See also

References

External links