Adolfo Bioy Casares (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈβjoj kaˈsaɾes]; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine writer, journalist, diary writer, and translator. He was a friend and often worked with Jorge Luis Borges, another Argentine writer. He wrote the fantasy novel The Invention of Morel.

Biography

Adolfo Bioy Casares was born on September 15, 1914, in Buenos Aires, the only child of Adolfo Bioy Domecq and Marta Ignacia Casares Lynch. He was born in Recoleta, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires traditionally inhabited by upper-class families, where he lived most of his life. Because of his family's high social class, he was able to focus entirely on writing and create work that was different from the traditional writing of his time. He wrote his first story, "Iris y Margarita," when he was eleven years old. He attended secondary school at the Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Later, he began studying law, philosophy, and literature but did not finish his degrees. Disappointed with the university environment, he moved to a family ranch, where he spent much of his time studying literature. By his late twenties, he was fluent in Spanish, English, French (which he learned at age 4), and German. Between 1929 and 1937, Bioy Casares published several books, including Prólogo, 17 disparos contra lo porvenir, Caos, La nueva tormenta, La estatua casera, and Luis Greve, muerto. He later criticized these works and stopped publishing them, calling all his writing before 1940 "horrible."

In 1932, he met Jorge Luis Borges at Villa Ocampo, a house in San Isidro owned by Victoria Ocampo. Victoria often hosted international guests and organized cultural events, one of which brought Borges and Bioy Casares together. Bioy Casares remembered that the two writers stepped away from the other guests, but Victoria Ocampo scolded them. This made them leave the gathering and return to the city together. Their journey began a lifelong friendship and many important literary collaborations. Using the names H. Bustos Domecq and Benito Suárez Lynch, they worked together on short stories, screenplays, and fantasy fiction, including Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi, Dos fantasías memorables, Un modelo para la muerte, Los orilleros, El paraíso de los creyentes, Invasión, Antología de la literatura fantástica, and Cuentos breves y extraordinarios. Between 1945 and 1955, they directed El séptimo círculo, a collection of translations of English detective stories, a genre Borges admired. In 2006, a biography of more than 1,600 pages based on Bioy Casares' journals was published. Bioy Casares had prepared and corrected the text earlier but could not publish it himself.

In 1940, he published the short novel The Invention of Morel, which marked the start of his mature writing. The book has an introduction by Borges, who noted that Spanish literature had no earlier examples of science fiction and called Bioy Casares its pioneer. The novella was well received and won the Primer Premio Municipal de Literatura (First Municipal Prize of Literature) in 1941. Around the same time, he collaborated with Borges and Silvina Ocampo to publish two collections: Antología de la literatura fantástica (1940) and Antología poética argentina (1941). In 1940, Bioy Casares married Silvina Ocampo, Victoria's sister, who was also a painter and writer. Their relationship broke social rules of their time and class, including a large age difference, living together for eight years before marriage, and Bioy Casares having relationships with other women. In 1954, one of Bioy Casares' mistresses had a daughter, Marta, in the United States. Marta was later adopted by Silvina. Marta died in a car accident three weeks after Silvina Ocampo's death, leaving Adolfo with two children. A Buenos Aires court later awarded the estate of Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares to another child of Bioy Casares, Fabián Bioy. Fabián Bioy died in Paris, France, on February 11, 2006, at age 40.

Bioy Casares won many awards, including the Gran Premio de Honor of SADE (Argentine Society of Writers, 1975), the French Legion of Honour (1981), the Diamond Konex Award of Literature (1994), the title of Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires (1986), and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1991 in Alcalá de Henares). Adolfo Bioy Casares is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Themes and style

Bioy Casares's writing style is often described as classical. He was first influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, but over time, he created unique elements that set his work apart. His early work from 1929 to 1937 was later rejected by him and is seen by critics as a developing stage shaped by Symbolism and Surrealism. His later work is usually divided into at least two main phases.

Common themes in Bioy's stories include the idea of making a deal with the devil (Faustian bargain), the presence of female characters, time travel, and questions about how people understand reality. Unlike the definitions given by Roger Caillois and Tzvetan Todorov, who describe the fantastic as an unexplainable event in a realistic setting, in Bioy's stories, the fantastic often involves characters entering a different or unfamiliar world that exists alongside the real world. These stories often follow journeys or escape attempts, where characters travel to other places, experience key events, and then return or try to return to their normal lives. This structure is sometimes compared to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Bioy did not use elements from Gothic fiction, like haunted houses or dark settings. Like Borges, his stories often focus on a single strange event that is later explained. His work has also been compared to Julio Cortázar's in how everyday life and characters are portrayed.

Love is another common theme in Bioy's work, often shown through ideas from Romanticism or courtly love. Female characters are often shown as uncertain or mysterious, while male characters are usually strongly connected to things or people they cannot reach. Critic José Miguel Oviedo described these male characters as “not very smart or capable” and called Bioy Casares's stories “fantastic comedies.”

Works

The most famous novel by Bioy Casares is La invención de Morel (The Invention of Morel). It tells the story of a man who runs away from the law and hides on an island that is said to be infected with a deadly disease that no one understands. As he tries to figure out why things seem to repeat, he discovers that the people he sees are not real. Instead, they are recordings made by a special machine invented by Morel. This machine can record three-dimensional images, voices, and even smells, making the recordings feel exactly like real life. The story combines elements of realism, fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Borges wrote an introduction where he called it a work of "reasoned imagination" and compared it to the stories of H.G. Wells. Both Borges and Octavio Paz said the novel is "perfect." The story is believed to have inspired the movie Last Year at Marienbad and influenced the TV series Lost.

Short story collections

Most of these Spanish-language collections have not been widely translated into English. English-language collections include:

• Miscellanies (a mix of stories, poems, essays, reflections, and sayings)
• Dictionary of Argentinean slang
• Works written together with Jorge Luis Borges
• Dos fantasías memorables and Un modelo para la muerte were first printed in very small numbers, only 300 copies each. They were first sold in larger numbers in 1970.
• Works written together with Silvina Ocampo
• Works written together with Daniel Martino
• Screenplays written together with Jorge Luis Borges