Julio Florencio Cortázar (Latin American Spanish: [ˈxuljo koɾˈtasaɾ]; August 26, 1914 – February 12, 1984) was an Argentine writer who later became a French citizen. He was a novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and translator. Cortázar is known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, a time when many Latin American writers gained international recognition. His work influenced many Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe.

Cortázar spent his childhood, teenage years, and early adulthood in Argentina. In 1951, he moved to France, where he lived for more than 30 years. During this time, he also lived in Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.

Biography

Julio Cortázar was born on August 26, 1914, in Ixelles, a town in Brussels, Belgium. His parents, Julio José Cortázar and María Herminia Descotte, were from Argentina. His father worked for the Argentine government in Belgium.

At the time of Cortázar’s birth, Belgium was under German control by soldiers from Kaiser Wilhelm II’s army. After German forces arrived, Cortázar and his family moved to Zürich, Switzerland, where María Herminia’s parents, Victoria Gabel and Louis Descotte (a French citizen), were staying in a safe area. The family lived in Switzerland for two years, first in Zürich and then in Geneva, before briefly moving to Barcelona, Spain. By the end of 1919, the family settled outside Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Cortázar’s father left the family when Julio was six years old, and they had no contact with him afterward. Julio spent much of his childhood in Banfield, a neighborhood south of Buenos Aires, with his mother and younger sister. The home in Banfield, including its backyard, inspired some of his stories. However, in a letter written in 1963, he described this time as “full of servitude, excessive touchiness, terrible and frequent sadness.” He was often sick as a child and spent many hours in bed reading. His mother, who knew many languages and loved reading, introduced him to the works of Jules Verne, a writer he admired for the rest of his life. In a 1975 magazine article, he said he spent his childhood in a “haze full of goblins and elves,” with a different understanding of space and time than others.

At 18, Cortázar earned a teaching certificate for elementary school. He later studied philosophy and languages at the University of Buenos Aires but left due to financial difficulties without completing his degree. He taught at two high schools in Buenos Aires Province, one in Chivilcoy and the other in Bolivar. In 1938, using the name Julio Denis, he published a book of sonnets titled Presencia. Later, he said this was his only mistake in publishing, as he believed in only sharing work he was fully confident in.

In 1944, Cortázar became a professor of French literature at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina. However, he left his position in 1946 due to political pressure from Peronist groups. He later worked as a translator and as a director for the Cámara Argentina del Libro, a trade organization.

In 1949, he published a play called Los Reyes (The Kings), based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

In 1980, Cortázar gave eight lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1951, he moved to France, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, though he traveled widely. From 1952 onward, he worked for UNESCO as a translator. He wrote most of his major works in Paris or in Saignon, a town in southern France, where he also had a home. In his later years, he spoke out against human rights abuses in Latin America and supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution, and Salvador Allende’s socialist government in Chile.

Cortázar had three long-term romantic relationships with women. His first wife was Aurora Bernárdez, an Argentine translator, whom he married in 1953. They separated in 1968 when he began a relationship with Ugnė Karvelis, a Lithuanian writer, editor, and filmmaker. Karvelis did not marry Cortázar but influenced his interest in politics, though he had already become politically aware after visiting Cuba in 1963. In 1981, he married Canadian writer Carol Dunlop. After Dunlop died in 1982, Aurora Bernárdez stayed with Cortázar during his final illness and inherited the rights to his works, as he had wished.

In August 1981, Cortázar suffered a serious bleeding in his stomach but survived. French President François Mitterrand gave him French citizenship. In 1983, after democracy returned to Argentina, Cortázar visited his homeland for the last time. He was welcomed by fans who recognized him on the street, but the government, led by President Raúl Alfonsín, did not meet with him.

Cortázar died in Paris in 1984 and is buried in the cimetière du Montparnasse. His death was reported to be caused by leukemia, though some sources say he died from AIDS due to a blood transfusion.

Works

Julio Cortázar began writing stories during his early years in school. His first book of poems, called Presencia ("Presence"), was published in 1938 under the name Julio Denis. This work was strongly influenced by the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé. He also wrote and published some short stories using the same pseudonym. His first major work published under his real name was a play titled Los Reyes ("The Monarchs") in 1949. This work received little attention at the time. However, in the late 1940s, his short stories began to gain interest, especially after a story titled Casa Tomada ("House Taken Over") was published in a magazine edited by Jorge Luis Borges.

Cortázar became well-known for his short stories, which were collected in books such as Bestiario (1951), Final del juego (1956), and Las armas secretas (1959). These works helped establish his reputation as a skilled writer of short fiction. His stories often include strange or unusual events that happen to ordinary people. In 1967, English translations of some of his stories were published by Pantheon Books as End of the Game and Other Stories. This collection was later renamed Blow-up and Other Stories.

During his lifetime, Cortázar wrote four novels: Los premios ("The Winners," 1960), Hopscotch ("Rayuela," 1963), 62: A Model Kit ("62 Modelo para Armar," 1968), and Libro de Manuel ("A Manual for Manuel," 1973). Except for Los premios, which was translated by Elaine Kerrigan, these novels were translated into English by Gregory Rabassa. Two other novels, El examen and Divertimento, were written before 1960 but were published after his death.

Hopscotch is considered Cortázar’s most important novel. It helped establish him as a leading writer during the Latin American Boom of the 1960s and has been called the greatest Latin American novel of the 20th century. Other notable works from this time include Historias de cronopios y famas (1962), a book of short, unusual prose passages, and an expanded version of Final del Juego (1964) with ten additional stories.

Cortázar was influenced by writers from English, French, and Spanish-American literature, including Jorge Luis Borges and Edgar Allan Poe. His use of inner thoughts and flowing narrative styles was inspired by James Joyce. However, his main influences were Surrealism and the spontaneous style of jazz music. This influence is seen in Hopscotch and the story El perseguidor ("The Pursuer"), which was based on the life of the jazz musician Charlie Parker.

In addition to fiction, Cortázar wrote poetry, plays, and non-fiction works. Some of these were created to accompany visual art. In the 1960s, he collaborated with the artist José Silva to make two books called La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos and Último Round. These books combined Cortázar’s writing with photographs, drawings, and other images, similar to a type of rural Argentine calendar he remembered from childhood. One of his final works was a collaboration with Carol Dunlop titled The Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, which described a humorous journey by car from Paris to Marseille.

As a translator, Cortázar worked on Spanish-language versions of Robinson Crusoe, the novel Mémoires d'Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar, and all of Edgar Allan Poe’s prose works.

Influence and legacy

Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup (1966) was inspired by a story called "Las babas del diablo" by Cortázar. This story was based on a photo taken by Chilean photographer Sergio Larraín during a photo shoot outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Cortázar also appeared briefly in the film, playing a homeless man whose picture is taken by David Hemmings' character. Cortázar's story "La autopista del sur" ("The Southern Thruway") influenced a 1960s film called Week End by Jean-Luc Godard. Manuel Antín, a filmmaker, has made three movies based on Cortázar's stories: Cartas de mamá, Circe, and Intimidad de los parques.

Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño said Cortázar greatly influenced his novel The Savage Detectives. He wrote, "It is clear that I am always grateful for the work of Borges and Cortázar." Puerto Rican novelist Giannina Braschi used Cortázar's story "Las babas del diablo" as the basis for a chapter called "Blow-up" in her bilingual novel Yo-Yo Boing! (1998). This chapter includes scenes with Cortázar's characters La Maga and Rocamadour. Cortázar is mentioned and praised in Rabih Alameddine's 1998 novel, Koolaids: The Art of War.

North American novelist Deena Metzger says Cortázar is a co-author of her novel Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn. The book was written twenty years after Cortázar's death. In Buenos Aires, a school, a public library, and a square in the Palermo neighborhood are named after Cortázar.

Filmography

• La Cifra Impar, 1960. A movie directed by Manuel Antín, inspired by the book "Letters from Mother."
• Circe, 1963. A movie directed by Manuel Antín, based on the story "Circe." The script was written by Manuel Antín and Julio Cortázar.
• El Perseguidor, 1963. A movie directed by Osias Wilenski, adapted from the book "El perseguidor."
• Intimidad de los Parques, 1965. A movie directed by Manuel Antín.
• Blow Up, 1966. A movie directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, based on the story "Las Babas del diablo."
• Cortázar, 1994. A documentary film directed by Tristán Bauer.
• Cortázar, apuntes para un documental, 2004. A documentary film directed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley, produced by Contrakultura Films.
• Graffiti on YouTube, 2005. A short film based on Julio Cortázar's short story "Graffiti," directed by Pako González.
• Graffiti, 2006. A short film based on Julio Cortázar's short story "Graffiti," directed by Vano Burduli.
• Mentiras Piadosas (released in English as Made Up Memories), 2009. A movie directed by Diego Sabanés, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story "The Health of the Sick" and other works by him.
• Hareau, Eliane; Sclavo, Lil (2018). El traductor, artífice reflexivo. Montevideo. ISBN 978-9974-93-195-4. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).