César Aira

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César Aira

Born:	February 23, 1949 Coronel Pringles, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Occupation:	Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist

César Aira (born on February 23, 1949 in Coronel Pringles, Buenos Aires Province) is an Argentine writer and translator, considered by many as one of the leading exponents of Argentine contemporary literature, in spite of his limited public recognition.

He has published over fifty books of stories, novels and essays. Indeed, at least since 1993 a hallmark of his work is an almost frenetic level of writing and publication –two to four novella-length books each year.

Aira has often spoken in interviews of elaborating an avant-garde aesthetic in which, rather than editing what he has written, he engages in a “flight forward” (fuga hacia adelante) to improvise a way out of the corners he writes himself into. Aira also seeks in his own work, and praises in the work of others (such as the Argentine-Parisian cartoonist and comic novelist Copi), the “continuum” (el continuo) of a constant movement forward in the fictional narrative. As a result his fictions can jump radically from one genre to another, and often deploy narrative strategies from popular culture and “subliterary” genres like pulp science fiction and television soap operas; on the other hand, he frequently deliberately refuses to conform to generic expectations for how a novel ought to end, leaving many of his fictions quite open-ended.

While his subject matter ranges from Surrealist or Dadaist quasi-nonsense to fantastic tales set in his Buenos Aires neighborhood in Flores, Aira also returns frequently to Argentina’s nineteenth century (the two books translated into English, The Hare and An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, are examples of this; so is the best-known novel of his early years, Ema la cautiva (Emma, the Captive)). He also returns regularly to play with stereotypes of an exotic East (Una novela china (A Chinese Novel); El volante (The Flyer), and El pequeño monje budista (The Little Buddhist Monk)). Aira also enjoys mocking himself and his childhood home town Coronel Pringles in fictions such as Cómo me hice monja (How I Became a Nun), Cómo me reí (How I Laughed), “El cerebro musical” (The Musical Brain) and Las curas milagrosas del doctor Aira (The Miraculous Cures of Dr. Aira). His novel "Cómo me hice monja" (How I Became a Nun) was selected as one of the best 10 publications in Spain in the year 1998.

Besides his fiction, and the translation work he does for a living, Aira also writes literary criticism, including monographic studies of Copi, the poet Alejandra Pizarnik, and the nineteenth-century British limerick and nonsense writer Edward Lear. He wrote a short book, Las tres fechas [The Three Dates], arguing for the central importance, when approaching some minor eccentric writers, of examining the moment of their lives about which they are writing , the date of completion of the work, and the date of publication of the work. Since publishing this theory Aira no longer includes the date of completion of his own works. Aira also was the literary executor of the complete works of his friend the scabrous poet-novelist Osvaldo Lamborghini (1940-1985).

The American publisher, New Directions, has put out two of his works (An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, How I Became A Nun) translated into English. New Directions plans to publish more works of Aira's in the near future.

[edit] Bibliography

La Abeja (1996) ISBN 9500416344
Alejandra Pizarnik (2001) ISBN 8428212570
Alejandra Pizarnik (1998) ISBN 9508450649
El bautismo : novela (1991) ISBN 9506941408
Canto castrato (1984) ISBN 9501503305
"El cerebro musical" (2005)
Cómo me hice monja (1993) ISBN 9508450061
Cómo me hice monja ; La prueba ; El llanto (1998) ISBN 843970223X
Cómo me reí (2005) ISBN 9508451696
El congreso de literatura (1999) ISBN 9509779520
Copi (1991) ISBN 9509976601
La costurera y el viento (1994) ISBN 9508450142
Las curas milagrosas del doctor Aira : novela (1998) ISBN 9879243072
Dante y reina (1997) ISBN 9879621425
Diario de la hepatitis (1993) ISBN 9879930215
Diccionario de autores latinoamericanos (2001) ISBN 9500422050
Los dos payasos (1995) ISBN 9508450290
"Edward Lear" (2004) ISBN 9508451432
Ema, la cautiva (1981)
Embalse (1992) ISBN 9500411288
An episode in the life of a landscape painter (2006) ISBN 0811216306 (alk. paper)
Un episodio en la vida del pintor viajero (2000) ISBN 9508450886
Los fantasmas : novela (1990) ISBN 9506941165
Fragmentos de un diario en los Alpes (2002) ISBN 9508451254
La fuente (1995) ISBN 9508450231
La guerra de los gimnasios (1993) ISBN 9500412535
El juego de los mundos : novela de ciencia ficción (2000) ISBN 9879764226
La liebre (1991) ISBN 9500410842
El llanto (1992)
La luz argentina (1983) ISBN 950250657X
Madre e hijo (1993)
El mago (2002) ISBN 843970917X
"Mil gotas" (2003)
La mendiga (1998) ISBN 987972111X
El mensajero (1996) ISBN 950845038X
Los misterios de Rosario (1994) ISBN 9500414139
Las noches de Flores (2004) ISBN 9879397371
Una novela china (2005) ISBN 9875661082
"Parménides" (2006) ISBN 9879397495
"El pequeño monje budista" (2006) ISBN 9872264848
La Princesa primavera (2003) ISBN 9684115539
La prueba : novela (1992) ISBN 9506942021
La serpiente (1997) ISBN 9508450533
El Sueño (1998) ISBN 9500418444
Un sueño realizado (2001) ISBN 9505116861
Taxol : precedido de Duchamp en México y La broma (1997) ISBN 9879551044
El tilo (2003) ISBN 9508451378
El todo que surca la nada (2003)
Las tres fechas (2001) ISBN 9508451122
La trompeta de mimbre (1998) ISBN 950845069X
Varamo (2002) ISBN 8433924990
La villa (2001) ISBN 9500422557
El volante (1992) ISBN 9509976687
Yo era una chica moderna (2004) ISBN 9872101469
Yo era una niña de siete años (2005) ISBN 9871180128

[edit] Works In Translation

The Hare (1997) ISBN 978-1852422912 (Serpent's Tail)
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (2006) ISBN 978-0-8112-1630-2 (New Directions)
How I Became A Nun (2007) ISBN 978-8-8112-1631-9 (New Directions)