Juan Emar is the pen name of the Chilean writer, artist and critic Álvaro Yáñez Bianchi (1893–1964). He was the son of politician, lawyer and journalist Eliodoro Yáñez. In Paris, he associated with the avant-garde artists of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. He published four books between 1935 and 1937 – Un año, Miltín, Ayer and Diez – but was met with critical indifference. His works were rediscovered after his death, and his reputation has grown in recent decades as a precursor of modernist literature in Latin America. He split his time between Santiago and Paris.
Ayer has been published in English translation by Peirene Press. His magnum opus Umbral, which totals over 4,000 pages in the Spanish edition, remains untranslated.
The pseudonym Juan Emar derives from the French phrase "J'en ai marre", meaning "I'm fed up".[1] [2]