Cortázar, Julio, << kawr TAH sahr, HOO lyoh >> (1914-1984), an Argentine author, was a leading figure in the Boom, a period in Latin American literature from the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s. Like other leading writers of the Boom, Cortázar wrote highly experimental fiction. His works typically combine such elements as fantasy, history, humor, myth, politics, folk tales, and satire. Among his themes are the meaning of life, death, the search for identity, and time.
Cortázar is best known for his novel Hopscotch (1963). This book is one of the most famous and influential novels in Latin American literature. The central character is Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine living in Paris, where he is searching for his mistress. Oliveira travels back to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he meets two characters who are the doubles of himself and his mistress. The conclusion of the book is open-ended. Cortázar instructs the reader, after finishing the first 56 chapters, to reread the chapters in a different order and include several other chapters in a sequence specified in a “Table of Instructions.” Readers thus re-create the novel as they read it.
Cortázar’s other experimental novels include 62: A Model Kit (1968), a sequel to Hopscotch; A Manual for Manuel (1973); and a modified comic book, Fantomas Takes On the Multinational Vampires (1975). His many short stories are collected in such volumes as End of the Game (1956, expanded 1964), All Fires the Fire (1973), and A Change of Light (1980). His essays and poetry appear in Around the Day in Eighty Worlds (1967) and Last Round (1969).
Cortázar was born on Aug. 26, 1914, in Brussels, Belgium, to Argentine parents. His family moved back to Argentina when he was 4 years old. Cortázar was educated in Argentina and worked as a teacher and translator. He left the country in 1951 to protest the government of the dictator Juan Perón. Cortázar’s first book, the short-story collection Bestiary, was published that year. Cortázar settled in Paris after leaving Argentina. He became a French citizen in 1981, but he retained his Argentine citizenship as well. He died on Feb. 12, 1984.
