Jorge Ibargüengoitia Antillón (January 22, 1928 – November 27, 1983) was a Mexican novelist and playwright who achieved great popular and critical success with his satires, three of which have appeared in English: ''The Dead Girls'', ''Two Crimes'', and '' The Lightning of August''. His plays include ''Susana y los Jóvenes'' and ''Ante varias esfinges'', both dating from the 1950s. His work also includes short stories and chronicles and is currently considered one of the most influential writers in Latin American literature. Ibargüengoitia was born in

Guanajuato Guanajuato, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato, is one of the 32 states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Guanajuato, 46 municipalities and its cap ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. In 1955, he received a Rockefeller grant to study in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

; five years later he received the

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

literary award. He died in Avianca Flight 011, which crashed on November 27, 1983, while it attempted to land in Madrid, Spain.

Biography

Jorge Ibargüengoitia was born in 1928 in the city of

. His father, Alejandro Ibargüengoitia Cumming, died when he was eight months old. His mother, María de la Luz Antillón, moved with Jorge to Mexico City to be close to her family after losing her husband, so Ibargüengoitia was brought up by his mother and by other women of her family. During his early education, he studied in schools that belonged to the

Marist Brothers The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic Church, Catholic religious institute of Religious brother, brothers. In 1817, Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from Fr ...

and was a boy scout. In 1947 he attended the ''Jamboree'' (the annual reunion of the Scouts), in which he travelled through France, Italy, Switzerland and England for three months. The painter

Manuel Felguérez Manuel Felguérez Barra (December 12, 1928June 8, 2020) was a Mexican abstract artist, part of the Generación de la Ruptura that broke with the muralist movement of Diego Rivera and others in the mid 20th century. Early life Felguérez was ...

, a friend who went to the same trip, told years later that both had considered the trip an amazing experience and had decided that they should do something with their lives that allowed them to continue travelling. Due to family pressure, Ibargüengoitia started studying engineering at

UNAM The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countries. It also has 34 ...

(National Autonomous University of Mexico) in 1945, although he dropped out in 1949 before finishing his studies. He wrote: "I grew up surrounded by women who adored me. They wanted me to be an engineer: they had had money, but had lost it and hoped I would make up for it ..When I had two years left to finish the engineering degree, I decided to drop out to focus on writing. The women of the house spent 15 years bemoaning that decision ..Later on they got used to it". After dropping out, he moved back to the state of Guanajuato, where his family still had lands. During that time, Ibargüengoitia met

Salvador Novo Salvador Novo López (July 30, 1904 – January 13, 1974) was a Mexican writer, poet, playwright, translator, television presenter, entrepreneur, and the official chronicler of Mexico City. As a noted intellectual, he influenced popular percepti ...

, who was mounting a play at

Teatro Juárez The Teatro Juárez is a historical 19th century theater located in the Mexican city of Guanajuato (Guanajuato), Guanajuato. It was built from 1872 to 1903 from a design by architect José Noriega and by order of General Florencio Antillón. The b ...

, in the city of Guanajuato. This meeting caused such an impression on Ibargüengoitia that he decided to return to Mexico City and enrol at the Faculty of Philosophy at UNAM, where he graduated with a specialization in Dramatic Arts. One of his teachers was

Rodolfo Usigli Rodolfo Usigli Wainer (November 17, 1905 – June 18, 1979) was a Mexican playwright, essayist, and diplomat. He has been called "the father of Mexican theater" and "playwright of the Mexican Revolution." In recognition of his work to articulat ...

. After he finished his studies, Ibargüengoitia started teaching. He even got his teacher Rodolfo Usigli's position, together with Luisa Josefina Hernández, when Usigli retired. He started to apply for and win scholarships too, including a Rockefeller scholarship for a stay in New York in 1955, to continue with his literary career. Ibargüengoitia moved to a house in

Coyoacán Coyoacán ( ; , Otomi: ) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. The former village is now the borough's "historic center". The name comes from Nahuatl and most likely means "place of coyotes", when the Aztecs named a pre- ...

(by then an unkept and hard to reach district of Mexico City) in 1957 together with his mother and aunt. He met the artist

Joy Laville Joy Laville (September 8, 1923 – April 13, 2018) was an English/Mexican artist whose art career began and mostly developed in Mexico when she came to the country to take art classes in San Miguel de Allende. While there she met Mexican writer J ...

in 1963 or 1964 in a bookstore in

San Miguel de Allende San Miguel de Allende () is the principal city in the Municipalities of Mexico, municipality of San Miguel de Allende (municipality), San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the t ...

, Guanajuato, and got married in 1973 after a few years together. They lived in Coyoacán until the death of Ibargüengoitia's mother, after which they decided to travel around Europe. They settled permanently in Paris in 1980.

Literary career

Theatre

While he was still a student of Dramatic Arts, in 1953, Ibargüengoitia wrote several plays to moderate acclaim, but which seemed to promise a successful career in theatre, such as ''Susana y los jóvenes'', ''La lucha con el ángel'', ''Clotilde en su casa'', the children's comedy ''El peluquero del rey'', ''Llegó Margó'' and ''Ante varias esfinges.'' After graduation he continued writing plays, although they had much less success; in 1959 he wrote the comedies ''El viaje superficial'' and ''Pájaro en mano;'' in 1960 he wrote ''La conspiración vendida'' per Salvador Novo's request (even though it never premiered, Ibargüengoitia sent it to a literary contest under a pseudonym and won Mexico City's Prize), ''Los buenos manejos, La fuga de Nicanor, La farsa del valiente Nicolás'' and ''Rigoberto entre las ranas'', and from 1961 is ''El amor de Sarita y el profesor Rocafuerte.'' His already debilitated link to the theatre due to the lack of success with his plays got further damaged in the beginning of the 1960s when Rodolfo Usigli was asked in an interview by

Elena Poniatowska Hélène Elizabeth Louise Amélie Paula Dolores Poniatowska Amor (born May 19, 1932), known professionally as Elena Poniatowska (), is a French-born Mexican journalist and author, specializing in works on social and political issues focused on ...

to name his favourite students and he did not mention Ibargüengoitia. He took the snub to heart, as he was sure he had been one of the most distinguished students of Usigli's class. Between 1961 and 1964 Ibargüengoitia wrote reviews of theatre plays for ''Revista de la Universidad'' (''University's Magazine''). His reviews were often controversial, as he was not afraid to write negative reviews on playwrights who were considered untouchable. His negative reviews of two plays by

Alfonso Reyes Alfonso Reyes Ochoa (17 May 1889 in Monterrey, Nuevo León – 27 December 1959 in Mexico City) was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and has been acclaimed as one of the ...

caused such controversy among the Mexican literary circles that Ibargüengoitia decided to leave the job. In 1962 he wrote his last play, ''El atentado'', with which he won the Casa de las Américas Prize.

Novels

During the 1950s, Ibargüengoitia started to read about the

Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution () was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its ...

, particularly the autobiographies of many of the main people that took part in it. While he was doing research for ''El atentado'', Ibargüengoitia got the idea to write a novel about the Mexican Revolution; this is how he came up with ''Los Relámpagos de Agosto (1964),'' a fictional story based on the last phase of the revolution and the forming of the political groups that would dominate Mexican politics for most of the twentieth century. The novel won the Casa de las Américas Prize, and in it, the style that would characterise most of his further work was already present: taking real-life stories and subjecting them to a whimsical, sardonic treatment. His next book'', La ley de Herodes'' (1967), is a collection of short stories, most of which are clearly based on details from his own life. He describes, among many other events, the misadventures of getting a mortgage in Mexico and his experiences at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

's International House. Like his novels, these stories combine farce, sexual peccadilloes, and humor. ''Maten al león'' (1969), although set on an imaginary island, is a novel mirroring the Latin American dictatorships; its details are comic but the end is dark. ''Estas ruinas que ves'' (1975) is a farce based on realistic details of academic life that are still visible in early 21st century Guanajuato: the clanging of church bells disconcerting a speaker, cutting the ribbon at museum openings, the set of cultural movers and shakers who have known each other since kindergarten. For ''Las Muertas'' (1977) he turned to the most outrageous criminals of his native state: the brothel-keepers

Delfina and María de Jesús González María Delfina González Valenzuela (1912 – 17 October 1968), María del Carmen González Valenzuela (1918–1969), María Luisa González Valenzuela (1920 – 19 November 1984) and María de Jesús González Valenzuela (1924–1990), known as ...

, whose decade-long careers as serial killers emerged in 1964. ''Dos crímenes'' (1979) is a novel about a man who is being prosecuted by the police and runs away to hide in his rich uncle's house, where intrigue, suspicions and relationships unravel among he and his family members. His last novel, ''Los pasos de López'', was published in 1982 and it is a fictional memoir whose characters are based on

Miguel Hidalgo Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mandarte y Villaseñor (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811), commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or simply Miguel Hidalgo (), was a Catholic priest, leader of the Mexican Wa ...

and the members of the

Querétaro conspiracy Querétaro, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Querétaro, is one of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities. Its capital city is Santiago de Querétaro. It is located in north-central Mexico, in a regio ...

of 1810. These three novels are unofficially called the "Plan de Abajo trilogy" because they all take place in the fictional region of Plan de Abajo, which is very similar to Ibargüengoitia's native state of Guanajuato. Ibargüengoitia died before he finished his seventh novel, which would have been set in the period of the Second Mexican Empire of Maximilian I and

Carlota of Mexico Charlotte of Mexico (; ; 7 June 1840 – 19 January 1927), known by the Spanish version of her name, Carlota, was by birth a princess of Belgium and member of the House of Wettin in the branch of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (as such she was also ...

. It was never published.

Weekly columns

Ibargüengoitia was also known for his weekly columns in the Mexico City newspaper ''Excelsior,'' and later on in the magazines ''Vuelta'' and '' Proceso,'' which have been collected in a half dozen paperback volumes.

Influences and style

Ibargüengoitia cited

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

and

Louis-Ferdinand Céline Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( ; ), was a French novelist, polemicist, and physician. His first novel '' Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the ' ...

as his most influential authors. He is considered one of the first writers who "demystified the contents of the history of Mexico" and humanised its heroic figures, through his use of irony, farce, humour and even grotesque depictions. The periods that most interested him were the Independence of Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. Aside from historical periods, Ibargüengoitia often wrote about details, anecdotes and problems of his daily life. His native state of Guanajuato was also frequently used as a set for his stories, although he almost always used fictional names, such as Cuévano, Plan de Abajo, Muérdago or Pedrones, to stand in for it or its cities. The writer has been quoted as saying he never meant to make anyone laugh, that he thought laughter was useless and a pointless waste of time.

Death and legacy

In 1983, Ibargüengoitia was invited by

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

to the First Encounter of Hispanic-American Culture in Bogota, Colombia. Even though he had initially declined to attend, he changed his mind at the last minute and boarded Avianca Flight 011 that departed from Paris and was due to land in Madrid. The plane, a Boeing 747, crashed near the Madrid-Barajas airport as it attempted to land, on November 27, 1983. He perished along with Peruvian poet

Manuel Scorza Manuel Scorza (September 9, 1928November 27, 1983) was an important Peruvian novelist, poet, and political activist, exiled under the regime of Manuel Odría. He was born in Lima. Life and career Scorza was a member of a student group affiliated ...

, Uruguayan critic

Ángel Rama Ángel A. Rama (; April 30, 1926November 27, 1983) was a Uruguayan writer, academic, and literary critic, known for his work on ''modernismo'' and for his theorization of the concept of "transculturation." Biography Born in Montevideo to Galician ...

, Argentinian academic Marta Traba, and 177 others. He is buried in Antillon Park in Guanajuato, named in honor of his great-grandfather General Florencio Antillón, and where a talavera plaque marks his remains. In translation, it says simply, "Here lies Jorge Ibargüengoitia in the park of his great-grandfather, who fought against the French." According to his publisher, Ibargüengoitia's books are still well received in libraries and bookstores, and his work has received renewed attention in the past years thanks to the effort of scholars and writers like

Juan Villoro Juan Antonio Villoro Ruiz (born 24 September 1956, in Mexico City) is a Mexican writer and journalist and the son of philosopher Luis Villoro. He has been well known among intellectual circles in Mexico, Latin America and Spain for years, but his ...

and

Sergio González Rodríguez Sergio González Rodríguez (26 January 1950 – 3 April 2017) was a Mexican journalist and writer who was best known for his works on the Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, femicides in Ciudad Juárez from the 1990s to the 2000s, such as ''Hues ...

. His personal archive is at the Firestone Library of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

Bibliography

Drama

* ''La lucha con el ángel'' (1955). * ''Clotilde en su casa'', also titled ''Un adulterio exquisito'' (1955). Published in ''Teatro mexicano del siglo XX''. México:

Fondo de Cultura Económica Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE or simply "Fondo") is a Spanish language, non-profit publishing group, partly funded by the Mexican government. It is based in Mexico but it has subsidiaries throughout the Spanish-speaking world. It was founded ...

(1956). * ''Ante varias esfinges'' (1959). * ''El viaje superficial'' (1960). Published in ''Revista Mexicana de Literatura'', June-September, 1960. * ''La conspiración vendida'' (1960). * ''El atentado'' (1963). * ''Los buenos manejos'' (1980). * ''Obras de Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Teatro I''. Includes: «Susana y los jóvenes», «Clotilde en su casa» and «La lucha con el ángel». México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1989). * ''Obras de Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Teatro II''. Includes: «Llegó Margó», «Ante varias esfinges», «El loco amor viene», «El tesoro perdido» and «Dos crímenes». México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1989). * ''Obra de Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Teatro III''. Includes: «El viaje superficial», «Pájaro en mano», «Los buenos manejos», «La conspiración vendida» and «El atentado». México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1990).

Novels

* ''Los relámpagos de agosto''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1965). (English translation: '' The Lightning of August'', 1986) * ''Maten al león''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1969). * ''Estas ruinas que ves''. México: Novaro, (1974). * ''Las muertas''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1977). (English translation: ''The Dead Girls'', 2018) * ''Dos crímenes''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1979). (English translation: ''Two Crimes'', 1984) * ''Los pasos de López''. México: Océano, (1982).

Short story collections

* ''La ley de Herodes y otros cuentos''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1967). * ''Piezas y cuentos para niños''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1990). * ''El ratón del supermercado y... otros cuentos''. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, (2005). * ''El niño Triclinio y la bella Dorotea''. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, (2008).

Essays

* ''Teatro mexicano contemporáneo''. Madrid: Aguilar, (1957). * ''Sálvese quien pueda''. México: Novaro, (1975).

Article collections

* ''Viajes en la América Ignota''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1972). * ''Autopsias rápidas''. México: Vuelta, (1988). * ''Instrucciones para vivir en México''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1990). * ''La casa de usted y otros viajes''. México: Joaquín Mortiz, (1991).

Films based on his books

* ''Maten al león'' (1975), directed by José Estrada * ''Las Poquianchis'' (1976), directed by Felipe Cazals * ''Estas ruinas que ves'' (1978), directed by Julian Pastor * ''Maten al león'' (1991), TV film directed by Jorge Alí Triana * ''Dos crímenes'' (1993), directed by

Roberto Sneider Roberto Sneider is a Mexican writer, director and producer best known for his films ''Dos Crímenes'' and '' Tear This Heart Out''. Early life and education Sneider is a graduate of Universidad Iberoamericana and of the directing program a ...

Awards

* Theatre Prize Ciudad de México for ''La conspiración vendida'' (1960) * Theatre Prize Casa de las Américas for ''El atentado'' (1963) * Novel Prize Casa de las Américas for ''Los relámpagos de agosto'' (1964) * International Novel Prize México for ''Estas ruinas que ves'' (1975)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibarguengoitia, Jorge 1928 births 1983 deaths 20th-century Mexican writers 20th-century Mexican male writers Avianca Flight 011 victims Writers from Guanajuato People from Guanajuato (city) Mexican people of Basque descent Mexican people of Scottish descent International Writing Program alumni National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni

Biography

Literary career

Theatre

Novels

Weekly columns

Influences and style

Death and legacy

Bibliography

Drama

Novels

Short story collections

Essays

Article collections

Films based on his books

Awards

See also

References