Puig, Manuel, << pweeg, mah NWEHL >> (1932-1990), was an important Argentine novelist. He was a leading figure in the transition from the Boom to the post-Boom in Latin American literature during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Puig’s novels reflect the author’s fascination with popular culture—radio dramas, glamour magazines, comic books, and especially Hollywood motion pictures. Puig told his stories largely through dialogue.
Puig’s most famous novel is Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976). Most of the story is set in a jail in Argentina. Two men share a cell. Valentin is a radical student imprisoned for his antigovernment political views. Molina is a homosexual department store window dresser jailed for “corruption of minors.” To pass the time, Molina describes the plots of his favorite Hollywood movies of the 1930’s and 1940’s. The dissimilar men gradually develop a bond. After Molina is released, he tries to get a message to Valentin’s radical friends, but he is caught first and shot to death. Puig adapted the novel into a play in 1981. It was also made into a motion picture in 1985 and a stage musical in 1993.
Puig gained immediate recognition with his first novel, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1968). It is a partly autobiographical story narrated by a boy who goes to the movies to relieve his boring life in rural Argentina. Heartbreak Tango (1969) tells the stories of the lives of several Argentine women through letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and conversations. The Buenos Aires Affair (1973) is a psychological detective story. Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages (1982) is a dialogue between two characters living in New York City. One is an elderly invalid from Argentina, and the other is a young American who takes care of him. The complex narrative blends realism and fantasy. Puig’s other novels include Pubis Angelical (1979), Blood of Requited Love (1984), and Tropical Night Falling (1988). Puig also wrote several plays.
Puig was born on Dec. 28, 1932, in General Villegas, Argentina, in Buenos Aires Province. He worked in various motion-picture jobs in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and became a full-time writer in 1967. Puig opposed the dictatorship of the Argentine dictator Juan Perón and left Argentina in 1973. He settled in Mexico at first but later lived in New York City and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He died in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on July 22, 1990.
See also Boom .
