Rodrigo Fresán (born 1963 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

) is a fiction writer and journalist. Since 1999, Fresán has lived and worked in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Spain. His books have been translated into many languages. ''Mantra'', a portrait of

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

ca. 2000, reveals the deep influence of science fiction novels ( Philip K. Dick in particular), movies (

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

) and TV shows ( ''The Twilight Zone''). According to

Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...

, "he's a kaleidoscopic, open-hearted, shamelessly polymathic storyteller, the kind who brings a blast of oxygen into the room." He was a close friend of the late Chilean writer

Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' (''The Savage Detectives' ...

Works

* ''Historia Argentina'' (1991) * ''Vidas de santos'' (1993) * ''Trabajos Manuales'' (1994) * ''Esperanto'' (1995) * ''La velocidad de las cosas'' (1998) * ''Mantra'' (2001) * ''Jardines de Kensington'' (2003). ''Kensington Gardens'', trans.

Natasha Wimmer Natasha Wimmer (born 1973) is an American translator best known for her translations of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño's ''2666'' and ''The Savage Detectives'' from Spanish into English. Wimmer learned Spanish in Spain, where she spent four yea ...

(Farrar Straus Giroux, 2006) * '' El fondo del cielo'' (2009). ''The Bottom of the Sky'', trans. Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter, 2018). * '' La parte inventada'' (2014). ''The Invented Part'', trans. Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter, 2017). * '' La parte soñada'' (2017). ''The Dreamed Part'', trans. Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter, 2019). *'' La parte recordada'' (2019). ''The Remembered Part'', trans. Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter, 2022). *''Melvill'' (2022). ''Melvill'', trans. Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter, 2024). *''El estilo de los elementos'' (2024)

Awards and honors

In 2017, Rodrigo Fresán received the prestigious

Prix Roger Caillois The prix Roger Caillois is an annual literary prize established in 1991 in partnership with the PEN Club in France and the as well as the Society of readers and friends of Roger Caillois, awarded to both a Latin American and a French author. Sinc ...

. In 2018, ''The Invented Part'' won the

Best Translated Book Award The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...

External links

Biography

Interview in the literary blog ''Hablando del asunto''
November 2009.
Translators’ Triptych: Around the World (All Worlds) In One Sentence by Rodrigo Fresán from ''Latin American Literature Today''

References

1963 births Living people Writers from Barcelona Writers from Buenos Aires Argentine male writers International Writing Program alumni {{Argentina-journalist-stub