Ricardo Piglia (November 24, 1941 in Adrogué, Argentina – January 6, 2017 in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine author, critic, and scholar best known for introducing hard-boiled fiction to the Argentine public.

Biography

Born in Adrogué, Piglia was raised in Mar del Plata. He studied history in 1961-1962 at the

National University of La Plata The La Plata National University ( es, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, UNLP) is one of the most important Argentine national universities and the biggest one situated in the city of La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires Province. It has over 90 ...

. Ricardo Piglia published his first collection of fiction in 1967, ''La invasión''. He worked in various publishing houses 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 ...

and was in charge of the Serie Negra which published well-known authors of

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

including

Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' ...

, Raymond Chandler,

David Goodis David Loeb Goodis (March 2, 1917 – January 7, 1967) was an American writer of crime fiction noted for his output of short stories and novels in the noir fiction genre. Born in Philadelphia, Goodis alternately resided there and in New York Cit ...

and Horace McCoy. A fan of American literature, he was also influenced by

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

and

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...

, as well as by European authors

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

and Robert Musil. Piglia's fiction includes several collections of short stories as well as highly allusive crime novels, among them ''Respiración artificial'' (1980, trans. ''Artificial Respiration''), ''La ciudad ausente'' (1992, trans. ''The Absent City''), and ''Blanco nocturno'' (2010, trans. ''Nocturnal Target''). His criticism has been collected in ''Criticism and Fiction'' (1986), ''Brief Forms'' (1999) and ''The Last Reader'' (2005). Piglia resided for a number of years in the United States. He taught

Latin American literature Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the ...

at Harvard as well as

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, where he was Walter S. Carpenter Professor of Language, Literature, and Civilization of Spain from 2001 to 2011. After retirement he returned with his wife to Argentina. In 2013 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; he died of the disease on January 6, 2017, in

, Argentina.

Awards and honors

During his lifetime Piglia received a number of awards, including the Premio internacional de novela Rómulo Gallegos (2011), Premio Iberoamericano de las Letras (2005), Premio Planeta (1997), and the

Casa de las Américas Prize The Casa de las Américas Prize (''Premio Literario Casa de las Américas'') is a literary award given by the Cuban Casa de las Américas. Established in 1959, it is one of Latin America’s oldest and most prestigious literary prizes. The award ...

(1967). In 2013 he won Chile's Manuel Rojas Ibero-American Narrative Award, and in 2014 he won the Diamond

Konex Award Konex Foundation Awards, or simply Konex Awards, are cultural awards from the Konex Foundation honouring Argentine cultural personalities. History and purpose Konex Awards are granted by the Konex Foundation, created in 1980 in Argentina. The pur ...

as the best writer of the decade in Argentina. On January 4, 2018, his memory was honored in New York City at "Modos infinitos de narrar: Homenaje a Ricardo Piglia," an event at which academics discussed the impact of his work on Latin American literature and intellectual history and his legacy as a literary critic and scholar.''PMLA'', Vol. 132, No. 4 (September 2017), 836.

Works

Essays *1986 ''Criticism and Fiction'' ("Crítica y ficción") *1993 ''Argentina in Pieces'' ("La Argentina en pedazos") *1999 ''Brief Forms'' ("Formas breves") *2000 ''Dictionary of the Novel of Macedonio Fernández'' ("Diccionario de la novela de Macedonio Fernández") *2005 ''The Last Reader'' ("El último lector") Novels *1980 '' Artificial Respiration'' ("Respiración artificial") *1992 ''The Absent City'' ("La ciudad ausente") *1997 ''Burnt Money'' ("Plata Quemada") *2010 ''Nocturnal Target'' ("Blanco nocturno") *2013 ''The Way Out'' ("El Camino de Ida") Short story collections *1967 ''The Invasion'' ("La Invasión") *1975 ''Assumed Name'' ("Nombre Falso") *1988 ''Perpetual Prison'' ("Prisión perpetua") *1995 ''Moral Tales'' ("Cuentos morales") Others *2015 ''The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Formative Years'' *2016 ''The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years'' *2017 ''The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life''

Bibliography

* Roberto Echavarren. "La literariedad: Respiración artificial, de Ricardo Piglia", ''Revista Iberoamericana'',

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

, U.S.A., vol. XLIX, October–December 1983, No. 125, pp. 997–1008.

References

External links

* *
Listing at literature dot org
* Review of Piglia's Rómulo Gallegos prize winning nove
Target in the Night
{{DEFAULTSORT:Piglia, Ricardo 1941 births 2017 deaths Argentine screenwriters Male screenwriters Argentine male writers Argentine diarists Latin Americanists People from Adrogué People from Mar del Plata Princeton University faculty Prix Roger Caillois recipients Argentine people of Italian descent Neurological disease deaths in Argentina Deaths from motor neuron disease Burials at La Chacarita Cemetery