Ernesto Sabato

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Ernesto Sabato

Born

June 24, 1911

Rojas, Buenos Aires Province,Argentina,

Died

April 30, 2011 (aged 99)

Santos Lugares, Buenos Aires
Province, Argentina

Occupation

Novelist and essayist, painter[1]

Language

Spanish

Nationality

Argentine

Ethnicity

Italian and Arbresh[2]

Citizenship

Argentine

Education

PhD in Physics

Alma mater

Universidad Nacional de La Plata

Period

19412004

Genre

Novel, essay

Notable works

El Tnel
Sobre hroes y tumbas
Abaddn el exterminador

Notable
awards

Legion of Honour
Prix du Meilleur Livre tranger
Miguel de Cervantes Prize
Jerusalem Prize

Spouse

Matilde Kusminsky Richter (19361998)

Children

Jorge Federico Sabato

Mario Sabato

Signature

Ernesto Sabato (June 24, 1911 April 30, 2011) was an Argentine writer, painter and physicist.
According to the BBC he "won some of the most prestigious prizes in Hispanic literature" and
"became very influential in the literary world throughout Latin America".[3] Upon his death El
Pas dubbed him the "last classic writer in Argentine literature".[4]
Sabato was distinguished by his bald pate and brush moustache and wore tinted spectacles and
open-necked shirts.[5] He was born in Rojas, a small town inBuenos Aires Province. Sabato began
his studies at the Colegio Nacional de La Plata. He then studied physics at the Universidad Nacional
de La Plata, where he earned a PhD. He then attended the Sorbonne in Paris and worked at
the Curie Institute. After World War II, he lost interest in science and started writing.
Sabato's oeuvre includes three novels: El Tnel (1948), Sobre hroes y tumbas (1961) and Abaddn
el exterminador (1974). The first of these received critical acclaim upon its publication from, among
others, fellow writers Albert Camus and Thomas Mann.[1] The second is regarded as his
masterpiece, though he nearly burnt it like many of his other works.[3] Sabato's essays cover topics
as diverse as metaphysics, politics and tango.[3] His writings led him to receive many international

prizes, including the Legion of Honour (France), the Prix du Meilleur Livre tranger (France) and
the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (Spain).[1]
On the request of President Ral Alfonsn he presided over the CONADEP commission that
investigated the fate of those who suffered forced disappearanceduring the Dirty War of the 1970s.
The result of these findings was published in 1984 bearing the title Nunca Ms (Never Again).
Contents

Biography[edit]
Early years[edit]
Ernesto Sabato was born on June 24, 1911, in Rojas, Buenos Aires Province, son of Francesco
Sabato and Giovanna Maria Ferrari, Italian immigrants fromCalabria. His father was from Fuscaldo,
and his mother was an Arbresh from San Martino di Finita.[2] He was the tenth of a total of eleven
children. Being born after his ninth brother's death, he carried on his name "Ernesto".[6]
In 1924 he finished primary school in Rojas and settled in the city of La Plata for his secondary
education at the Colegio Nacional de La Plata. There he met professor Pedro Henrquez Urea, an
early inspiration for his writing career.[7] In 1929 he started college, attending the School of Physics
and Mathematics at theUniversidad Nacional de La Plata.
He was an active member in the Reforma Universitaria movement,[8] founding "Insurrexit Group" in
1933 of communist ideals together with Hctor P. Agosti, ngel Hurtado de Mendoza and
Paulino Gonzlez Alberdi, among others.[9]
In 1933 he was elected Secretario General of the Federacin Juvenil Comunista (Communist Youth
Federation).[10] While attending a lecture about Marxism he met Matilde Kusminsky Richter, aged 17,
who would leave her parents' house to live with Sabato.[11]
In 1934 he started to doubt communism and Joseph Stalin's regime. The Communist Party of
Argentina, which had noted this, sent him to the International Lenin School for two years. According
to Sabato "it was a place where either you recovered or ended up in a gulag or psychiatric
hospital".[12] Before arriving at Moscow, he traveled to Brussels as a delegate from the Communist
Party of Argentina at the "Congress against Fascism and the War". Once there, fearing not coming
back from Moscow, he left the congress to escape to Paris.[12] It was there where he wrote his first
novel: La Fuente Muda, which remains unpublished.[10][12] Once back in Buenos Aires, in 1936, he
married Matilde Kusminsky Richter.

His years as a scientist[edit]

In 1938 he obtained his PhD in physics from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Thanks
to Bernardo Houssay, he was granted a research fellowship in atomic radiation at the Curie
Institute in Paris.[10] On May 25, 1938 Jorge Federico Sabato, his first son, was born. While in France
he made contact with the surrealist movement, studying the works of Oscar Domnguez, Benjamin
Pret, Roberto Matta Echaurrenand Esteban Francs among others. This would have a deep
influence on his future writing.[13]
During that time of antagonisms, I buried myself with electrometers and graduated cylinders during
the morning and spent the nights in bars, with the delirious surrealists. At the Dome and in the Deux
Magots, inebriated with those heralds of chaos and excess, we used to spend many hours
creating exquisite cadavers.
Ernesto Sabato.[6][13]
In 1939 he transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Once in 1940 he came back to
Argentina intent on leaving physics behind. However, serving an obligation to those responsible for
his fellowship Sabato started teaching at the Universidad de La Plata for Engineering admission,

and relativity and quantum mechanics for post graduate degrees. In 1943, due to an "existential
crisis", he left science for good to become a full-time writer and painter.[12]
At the Curie Institute, one of the highest goals for a physicist, I found myself empty. Beaten up by
disbelief, I kept going because of inertia, which my soul rejected.
Ernesto Sabato[6]
In 1945, his second son, Mario Sabato was born.

Writing career[edit]
In 1941, Sabato published his first literary work, an article about La invencin de Morel by Adolfo
Bioy Casares, in the magazine Teseo from La Plata. Also, in concert with Pedro Henrquez Urea,
he published a collaboration in the renowned Sur magazine.
In 1942, working for Sur magazine reviewing books, he was put in charge of the "Calendario" section
and participated in "Desagravio a Borges" in Sur n 94. He also published articles for La Nacin, and
his translation of The Birth and Death of the Sun by George Gamow was published. The next year
he published the translation for The ABC of Relativity by Bertrand Russell.
In 1945, his first book, Uno y el Universo, a series of essays criticizing the apparent moral neutrality
of science and warning about dehumanization processes in technological societies, was published;
with time he would turn towards a libertarian and humanist standing. That same year he was
awarded a prize by the municipality of Buenos Aires for his book and the honor wand of the
Sociedad Argentina de Escritores.
In 1948, after being rejected by several Buenos Aires' editors, Sabato published in Sur his first
novel, El tnel, a psychological novel narrated in first-person. Framed in existentialism, it was met
with enthusiastic reviews by Albert Camus, who had the book translated by Gallimard into French. It
has been further translated to more than 10 languages.[14] Others to enjoy the book included Thomas
Mann.[1][5]
France's literary industry named his book Abaddon el Exterminador (The Angel of Darkness) as
1976's best foreign book.[1]
In 1998 his wife died.[15] In 1999 he acquired the Italian citizenship, in addition to his original
Argentine one.[16]
Sabato died in Santos Lugares, on April 30, 2011, two months short of his 100th birthday.[17][18] His
death was as a result of bronchitis according to his companion and collaborator Elvira Gonzalez
Fraga.[15]World reaction to his death said he had "surpassed the world of literature to gain a more
iconic status".[4] El Mundo of Spain said he was "the last survivor of Argentine writers with a capital
letter".[4]

Works[edit]
Novels[edit]

1948: El tnel (Translated by Harriet de Onis in 1950 as The Outsider and again by Margaret
Sayers Peden in 1988 as The Tunnel.)
1961: Sobre hroes y tumbas (Translated by Helen R. Lane in 1981 as On Heroes and
Tombs.)
1974: Abaddn el exterminador (Translated by Andrew Hurley in 1991 as The Angel of
Darkness.)

Essays[edit]

1945: Uno y el Universo (One and the Universe)

1951: Hombres y engranajes (Man and Mechanism)
1953: Heterodoxia (Heterodoxy)
1956: El caso Sabato. Torturas y libertad de prensa. Carta abierta al General Aramburu (The
Sabato Case. Tortures and Liberty of Press. Open Letter to General Aramburu)
1956: El otro rostro del peronismo (The Other Face of Peronism)
1963: El escritor y sus fantasmas (Translated by Asa Zatz in 1990 as The Writer in the
Catastrophe of our Time.)
1963: Tango, discusin y clave (Tango: Discussion and Key)
1967: Significado de Pedro Henrquez Urea (Significance of Pedro Henrquez Urea)
1968: Tres aproximaciones a la literatura de nuestro tiempo: Robbe-Grillet, Borges,
Sartre (Three Approximations to the Literature of our Time: Robbe-Grillet, Borges, Sartre)
1973: La cultura en la encrucijada nacional (Culture in the National Crossroads)
1976: Dilogos con Jorge Luis Borges (Dialogues with Jorge Luis Borges) (Edited by
Orlando Barone.)
1979: Apologas y rechazos (Apologies and Rebuttals)
1979: Los libros y su misin en la liberacin e integracin de la Amrica Latina (Books and
their Mission in the Liberation and Integration of Latin America)
1988: Entre la letra y la sangre. Conversaciones con Carlos Catania (Between Letter and
Blood. Conversations with Carlos Catania)
1998: Antes del fin (Before the End)
Antes del fin is an autobiography in which he recounts his life and the influences on his
political and ethical opinions. Sabato discusses the ill effects of globalization and the exalting
of rationalism and materialism. There are also several tender passages about his school
experiences in the 1920s (when there was more idealism, Sabato says), about his deceased
wife and son, Matilde and Jorge, and about the struggling workers he meets on the streets
of Buenos Aires.

2000: La resistencia (The Resistance)

2004: Espaa en los diarios de mi vejez (Spain in the Diaries of my Old Age)

Others[edit]

1964: Itinerario (Itinerary)

1966: Romance de la muerte de Juan Lavalle. Cantar de Gesta (Romance of Juan Lavalle's
Death. Cantar de gesta)
1984: Nunca ms. Informe de la Comisin Nacional sobre la desaparicin de
personas (Never Again. Report from the National Commission on the Disappearance of
Persons)