José Agustín Ramírez Gómez (born 19 August 1944) is a Mexican

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

writer,

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

. He is considered as one of the most influential and prolific Mexican writers of the second half of the 20th century.

Career

José Agustín was born in

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...

, Mexico on 19 August 1944. He studied Classical Literature at the School of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico,

Film direction A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...

at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos and Dramaturgy at the

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, en, National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature), located in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, is the Mexican institution in charge of coordinating artistic and cultural ...

. Agustín participated in

Juan José Arreola Juan José Arreola Zúñiga (September 21, 1918 – December 3, 2001) was a Mexican writer, academic, and actor. He is considered Mexico's premier experimental short story writer of the 20th century. Arreola is recognized as one of the first Lati ...

's writers' workshop from 1962 to 1965, where he wrote his first novel, '' La Tumba'' (The Tomb), when he was nineteen years old. The novel was the brief but provocative story of a Mexican upperclass

teen Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the te ...

, deemed indecent by the public but gathering praise from older writers. This and his most famous work, ''De Perfil'' (Profile view), a fast and detailed view of three days in the main character's life, show stylistic similarities to

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's work, especially ''

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A ''Künstlerroman'' written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's fictional al ...

''. He was considered a member of the so-called ''Onda'' literature, ''onda'' (

wave In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...

) being

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...

for current and fashionable views in the eyes of young people. A common technique in his work is mixing character's speech with narrative, without making any kind of distinction (free indirect discourse). Thus the reader finds a long dialogue written in a single sentence, and is expected to realize which character is speaking as he reads the words. He also makes use of the

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...

technique. Agustin has taught at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

, the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

and the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

Awards

* 1977: Guggenheim Fellowship * 1993: Premio Nacional de Literatura Juan Ruiz de Alarcón * 2011:

Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes The National Prize for Arts and Sciences ( es, Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes) is awarded annually by the Government of Mexico in six categories. It is part of the Mexican Honours System and was established in 1945. The prize is a gold medal a ...

Bibliography

Novels

*'' La Tumba'' (1964) *'' De Perfil'' (1966) *''Abolición de la propiedad'' (1969) *''Se está haciendo tarde'' (1973) *''El rey se acerca a su templo'' (1978) *''

Ciudades Desiertas ''Ciudades Desiertas'' (''Empty cities'' or ''Deserted Cities'') is a 1982 novel written in Spanish by José Agustín. It is a mature work set in a small city in the United States around the early 1980s. Plot summary ''Ciudades Desiertas'' is t ...

'' (1982) *''Cerca del fuego'' (1986) *''La panza del Tepozteco'' (1992) *''Dos horas de sol'' (1994) *''Vida con mi viuda'' (2004) *''Armablanca'' (2006)

Short Stories

*''Inventando que sueño'' (1968) *''La mirada en el centro'' (1977) *''No hay censura'' (1988) *''No pases esta puerta'' (1992) *''La miel derramada'' (1992)

Plays

*''Círculo vicioso'' (1974)

Essays

*''La nueva música clásica'' (1968) *''Literature and censorship in Latin America Today: Dream within a dream'' (1978) *''Tragicomedia Mexicana: La vida en Mexico de 1940 a 1970. Tomo 1'' (1990) *''Tragicomedia Mexicana: La vida en Mexico de 1970 a 1982. Tomo 2'' (1992) *''Tragicomedia Mexicana: La vida en Mexico de 1982 a 1994. Tomo 3'' (2007) *''Camas de campo, campos de batalla'' (1994) *''La Contracultura en Mexico'' (1996) *''El hotel de los corazones solitarios'' (1996) *''Los grandes discos de rock 1951-1975'' (1996)

Chronicles

*''Contra la corriente'' (1991)

Autobiography

*''Quién soy, dónde estoy, qué me dieron'' (1966) *''El rock de la cárcel'' (1986) *''Diario de brigadista: Cuba 1961'' (2011)

Filmography

*'' 5 de chocolate y 1 de fresa'' (1968) *
Luz externa
' (1974) *''

El año de la peste EL, El or el may refer to: Religion * El (deity), a Semitic word for "God" People * EL (rapper) (born 1983), stage name of Elorm Adablah, a Ghanaian rapper and sound engineer * El DeBarge, music artist * El Franco Lee (1949–2016), American po ...

'' (1979)

In popular culture

The Mexican band

Belafonte Sensacional Belafonte Sensacional is a Mexican rock and folk rock band based in Mexico City led by musician and composer Israel Ramírez. History Belafonte Sensacional was the stage name that in 2009 Israel Ramírez —a musician from Iztapalapa, Mexico Cit ...

wrote the song "Epic Aris" inspired by the literary works of José Agustín and Parménides García Saldaña, another writer that was considered a member of La Onda literature.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agustin, Jose 1944 births Living people Mexican male novelists Mexican male writers People from Acapulco