Ernesto Sabato
Ernesto Sabato (June 24, 1911 – April 30, 2011) was an Argentine novelist, essayist, 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". Upon his death "El País" dubbed him the "last classic writer in Argentine literature". Sabato was distinguished by his bald pate and brush moustache and wore tinted spectacles and open-necked shirts. He was born in Rojas, a small town in Buenos 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 Túnel" (1948), "Sobre héroes y tumbas" (1961) and "Abaddón el exterminador" (1974). The first of these received critical acclaim upon its publication from, among others, fellow writers Albert Camus and Thomas Mann. The second is regarded as his masterpiece, though he nearly burnt it like many of his other works. Sabato's essays  cover topics as diverse as metaphysics, politics and tango. His writings led him to receive many international prizes, including the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (Spain), the Legion of Honour (France), the Jerusalem Prize (Israel), and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (France). At the request of President Raúl Alfonsín, he presided over the CONADEP Commission that investigated the fate of those who suffered forced disappearance during the Dirty War of the 1970s. The result of these findings was published in 1984, bearing the title "Nunca Más" ("Never Again"). Biography. Early years. Ernesto Sabato was born in Rojas, Buenos Aires Province , son of Francesco Sabato and Giovanna Maria Ferrari, Italian immigrants from Calabria. His father was from Fuscaldo, and his mother was an Arbëreshë (Albanian minority in Italy) from San Martino di Finita. He was the tenth of a total of 11 children. Being born after his ninth brother's death, he carried on his name "Ernesto". 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 Henríquez Ureña, an early inspiration for his writing career. In 1929 he  started college, attending the School of Physics and Mathematics at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. He was an active member in the "Reforma Universitaria" movement, founding "Insurrexit Group" in 1933 – of communist ideals – together with Héctor P. Agosti, Ángel Hurtado de Mendoza and Paulino González Alberdi, among others. In 1933 he was elected Secretario General of the Federación Juvenil Comunista (Communist Youth Federation). While attending a lecture about Marxism he met Matilde Kusminsky Richter, aged 17, who would leave her parents' house to live with Sabato. 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". 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. It was there where he wrote his first novel: "La Fuente Muda", which remains unpublished. Once back in Buenos Aires, in  1936, he married Matilde Kusminsky Richter. His years as a scientist. 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. 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 Domínguez, Benjamin Péret, Roberto Matta Echaurren and Esteban Francés among others. This would have a deep influence on his future writing. 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. In 1945, his second son, Mario Sabato was born. Writing career. In 1941, Sabato published his first literary work, an article about "La invención de Morel" by Adolfo Bioy Casares, in the magazine  Teseo from La Plata. Also, in concert with Pedro Henríquez Ureña, 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" nº 94. He also published articles in "La Nación" and a translation of "The Birth and Death of the Sun" by George Gamow. The following year he published a translation of "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 túnel", a psychological novel narrated in the first person. Framed in existentialism, it was met with enthusiastic reviews by Albert Camus, who had Gallimard publish a French translation. It has been  further translated to more than 10 languages. Others who enjoyed the book included Thomas Mann. France's literary industry named Sabato's book "Abaddon, el Exterminador" ("The Angel of Darkness") the best foreign book of 1976. In 1998 Sabato's wife died. In 1999 he acquired Italian citizenship in addition to his original Argentine nationality. Sabato died in Santos Lugares on April 30, 2011, two months short of his 100th birthday. His death was the result of bronchitis, according to his companion and collaborator Elvira González Fraga. The Spanish newspaper "El Mundo" said he had been "the last surviving Argentine  writer with a capital W". Tribute. On 24 June 2019, on Sábato's 108th birthday, he was honored with a Google Doodle.