Marco Denevi (May 12, 1922 – December 12, 1998) was an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

author of novels and short stories, as well as a lawyer and journalist. His work is characterized by its originality and depth, as well as a criticism of human incompetence. His first work, a mystery novel titled ''

Rosaura a las diez ''Rosaura at 10 O'Clock'' ( es, Rosaura a las 10) is a 1958 Argentine crime drama mystery film directed by Mario Soffici and starring Juan Verdaguer and Susana Campos. It was entered into the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. It is based on a 1955 novel ...

'' (1955), was a Kraft award winner and a bestseller. In 1964, it was translated into English as '' Rosa at Ten O'Clock''. Other famous works of his include ''Los expedientes'' (1957), ''Ceremonia Secreta'' (1960), ''El cuarto de la noche'' (1962), and '' Falsificaciones'' (1966). ''Ceremonia Secreta'' was filmed as '' Secret Ceremony'' in 1968 starring

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...

Mia Farrow Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow ( ; born February 9, 1945) is an American actress. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera '' Peyton Place'' and gained further recognition for her subsequent ...

Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...

, and

Peggy Ashcroft Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...

. It was directed by

Joseph Losey Joseph Walton Losey III (; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted ...

, with a screenplay written by

George Tabori George Tabori ( György Tábori; 24 May 1914 – 23 July 2007) was a Hungarian writer and theatre director. Life and career Tabori was born in Budapest as György Tábori, a son of Kornél and Elsa Tábori. His father Kornél (Cornelius) was m ...

. In his edition of this and other Denevi works (Macmillan, 1965), Donald A. Yates mentions Denevi's admiration for Wilkie Collins, whose work this novella resembles. He is less known as an essayist, but he also cultivated that genre with his ''República de Trapalanda'' (1989), a late work, where he took on Ezequiel Martínez Estrada and

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (; born Domingo Faustino Fidel Valentín Sarmiento y Albarracín; 15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the second President of Argentina. His writing s ...

's view of the Argentine republic. He was born in the province of

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, and at a young age he began playing the piano and reading. He graduated from college in 1939, and did not receive his law degree until 1956. In 1987 he was inducted into the Argentine Academy of Letters. It is important to note Denevi's desire to be a playwright. He wrote many dramatic pieces but felt he was not talented enough to write for the theater in Spain.

External links

Obituary on literatura.org
(

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the ...

)
Translation of short story in The Cafe Irreal

Secondary Sources

*Gotschlich R. Guillermo. "''Ceremonia secreta'' de Marco Denevi; enigma y ritualización". '' Revista Chilena de Literatura'' 33 (1989): 89-101. *Ramos Escobar, José L. "''Ceremonia secreta'': ritos". ''Revista Interamericana'' 10 (1980-1981): 19–26. *Ward, Thomas. "Marco Denevi y su propuesta en contra del Poder". En ''La resistencia cultural: la nación en el ensayo de las Américas''. Lima: Universidad Ricardo Palma, 2004: 98-108. Male screenwriters Argentine male writers 1922 births 1998 deaths People from Tres de Febrero Partido Burials at La Recoleta Cemetery 20th-century Argentine screenwriters 20th-century Argentine male writers {{Argentina-writer-stub