Jaime Collyer (born 1955) is a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

an writer, born in

Santiago, Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

. He became part of a generation of writers known as the ''"Nueva narrativa chilena"'' or New Chilean Narrative. His works have been translated into English, French and other languages, winning various literary prizes and acclaim.

Life

Born in 1955, Collyer claims he discovered the joy of writing fiction as a child in school at a young age. Later in university, studying psychology, he realised "the only thing I wanted to do was to write." Having finished his degree in 1980, Collyer moved to

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

in 1981 to begin a writing career and to study International Relations and Political Science. In 1986, he co-wrote a children's book ''Hacia el nuevo mundo'', and his writing career began in earnest from there. He published ''El infiltrado'' in 1989, which was awarded a prize as the best Latin-American novel translated to French that year. Collyer has continued to publish works to much critical acclaim and has won the ''Premio Municipal de Santiago'' for his short story collections, amongst various other awards for his publications in general. The

New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

described him as "a born writer".

Influences

Collyer cites a diverse and wide-ranging set of influences from various countries and cultures. Amongst them are

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

and

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

as well as German post war writers such as

Heinrich Böll Heinrich Theodor Böll (; ; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll received the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). Bio ...

and

Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gda ...

. Chief amongst his influences are authors of Latin-American extraction, including

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine and naturalised French novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenc ...

and

Juan Carlos Onetti 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 be ...

. Perhaps his most salient influence, an author to whom he has been compared, is the Argentine

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 ...

. Undoubtedly an influence, Collyer was even dubbed "The New Borges" after the release of the collection ''Gente al acecho'' (''People on the Prowl''). Borges is mentioned within the collection in the story 'Ultimos días de nuestro vecino', in which a character comes across the Aleph, a place where all points on the earth can be seen from one point, something which Borges had described in his own short story in the collection The Aleph.Laraway, D, 2000, 'Borges and His Progeny', ''Latin American Literary Review'', Vol. 28, No. 52, pp. 27-42

Works

Novels *''Los años perdidos'' (1986) *''El infiltrado'' (1989) *''Cien pájaros volando'' (1995) *''El habitante del cielo'' (2002) *''La fidelidad presunta de las partes'' (2009) *''Gente en las sombras'' (2020) Short story collections *''Gente al acecho'' (1998) *''La bestia en casa'' (1998) *''Cuentos privados'' (2002) *''La voz del amo'' (2005) Children's books *''Hacia el nuevo mundo'' (1986)

External links

*
Interview with Jaime Collyer
*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collyer, Jaime Chilean male writers Living people 1955 births International Writing Program alumni