Ricardo Piglia (November 24, 1941, in Adrogué – January 6, 2017, in Buenos Aires) was an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

author, critic, and scholar best known for introducing hard-boiled fiction to the Argentine public.

Biography

Born in Adrogué, Piglia was raised in

Mar del Plata Mar del Plata is a city on the coast of the Argentine Sea, Atlantic Ocean, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the seat of General Pueyrredón Partido, General Pueyrredón district. Mar del Plata is the second largest city in Buenos Aires ...

. He studied history in 1961-1962 at the National University of La Plata. Ricardo Piglia published his first collection of fiction in 1967, ''La invasión''. He worked in various publishing houses in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

and was in charge of the Serie Negra which published well-known authors of

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professiona ...

including Dashiell Hammett,

Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...

, David Goodis and Horace McCoy. A fan of

American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also ...

, he was also influenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald and

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

, as well as by European authors

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

and

Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels. Family M ...

. Piglia's fiction includes several collections of short stories as well as highly allusive crime novels, among them ''Respiración artificial'' (1980, trans. ''Artificial Respiration''), ''La ciudad ausente'' (1992, trans. ''The Absent City''), and ''Blanco nocturno'' (2010, trans. ''Nocturnal Target''). His criticism has been collected in ''Criticism and Fiction'' (1986), ''Brief Forms'' (1999) and ''The Last Reader'' (2005). Piglia resided for a number of years in the United States. He taught Latin American literature at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

as well as at

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 ...

, where he was Walter S. Carpenter Professor of Language, Literature, and Civilization of Spain from 2001 to 2011. After retirement he returned with his wife to Argentina. In 2013 he was diagnosed with

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, Terminal illness, terminal neurodegenerative disease, neurodegenerative disorder that results i ...

; he died of the disease on January 6, 2017, in

, Argentina.

Awards and honors

During his lifetime Piglia received a number of awards, including the Premio internacional de novela Rómulo Gallegos (2011), Premio Iberoamericano de las Letras (2005), Premio Planeta (1997), and the

Casa de las Américas Prize The Casa de las Américas Prize (''Premio Literario Casa de las Américas'') is a literary award given by the Cuban Casa de las Américas. Established in 1959, it is one of Latin America’s oldest and most prestigious literary prizes. The award ...

(1967). In 2013 he won Chile's Manuel Rojas Ibero-American Narrative Award, and in 2014 he won the Diamond Konex Award as the best writer of the decade in Argentina. In 2015 Piglia won the Prix Formentor. On January 4, 2018, his memory was honored in New York City at "Modos infinitos de narrar: Homenaje a Ricardo Piglia," an event at which academics discussed the impact of his work on Latin American literature and intellectual history and his legacy as a literary critic and scholar.''PMLA'', Vol. 132, No. 4 (September 2017), 836.

Works

Essays *1986 ''Criticism and Fiction'' ("Crítica y ficción") *1993 ''Argentina in Pieces'' ("La Argentina en pedazos") *1999 ''Brief Forms'' ("Formas breves") *2000 ''Dictionary of the Novel of Macedonio Fernández'' ("Diccionario de la novela de Macedonio Fernández") *2005 ''The Last Reader'' ("El último lector") Novels *1980 ''

Artificial Respiration Artificial ventilation or respiration is when a machine assists in a metabolic process to exchange gases in the body by pulmonary ventilation, external respiration, and internal respiration. A machine called a ventilator provides the person air ...

'' ("Respiración artificial") *1992 ''The Absent City'' ("La ciudad ausente") *1997 ''Burnt Money'' ("Plata Quemada") *2010 ''Nocturnal Target'' ("Blanco nocturno") *2013 ''The Way Out'' ("El Camino de Ida") Short story collections *1967 ''The Invasion'' ("La Invasión") *1975 ''Assumed Name'' ("Nombre Falso") *1988 ''Perpetual Prison'' ("Prisión perpetua") *1995 ''Moral Tales'' ("Cuentos morales") Others *2015 ''The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Formative Years'' *2016 ''The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years'' *2017 ''The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life''

Bibliography

* Roberto Echavarren. "La literariedad: Respiración artificial, de Ricardo Piglia", ''Revista Iberoamericana'',

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

, U.S.A., vol. XLIX, October–December 1983, No. 125, pp. 997–1008.

References

External links

* *
Listing at literature dot org
* Review of Piglia's Rómulo Gallegos prize winning nove
Target in the Night
{{DEFAULTSORT:Piglia, Ricardo 1941 births 2017 deaths Argentine screenwriters Argentine male screenwriters Argentine diarists Latin Americanists People from Adrogué People from Mar del Plata Princeton University faculty Argentine people of Italian descent Deaths from motor neuron disease in Argentina Burials at La Chacarita Cemetery National University of La Plata alumni