Juan Gelman Explained

Juan Gelman
Birth Date:3 May 1930
Birth Place:Buenos Aires, Argentina
Death Place:Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation:Poet

Juan Gelman (3 May 1930 – 14 January 2014) was an Argentine poet. He published more than twenty books of poetry between 1956 and his death in early 2014. He was a naturalized citizen of Mexico,[1] country where he arrived as a political exile of the Process, the military junta ruling Argentinia from 1976 to 1983.

In 2007, Gelman was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the most important in Spanish literature. His works celebrate life but are also tempered with social and political commentary and reflect his painful experiences with the politics of Argentina.

Biography

Juan Gelman Burichson was born on May 3, 1930, in Buenos Aires Villa Crespo neighborhood to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. As a boy, he read Russian and European literature widely under the tutelage of his brother Boris.[2] His father, José Gelman, was a social revolutionary who participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905; he immigrated to Argentina, went back shortly after the October Revolution, and then returned to Argentina for good, disillusioned.

Gelman learned to read when he was three years old and spent much of his childhood reading and playing soccer. He developed an interest in poetry at a very young age, influenced by his brother Boris, who read him several poems in Russian, a language the boy did not know. The experience of reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's Insulted and Humiliated (1861) at age eight made a profound impression on him.

As a young man, he was a member of several notable literary groups and later became an important journalist. He also translated at the United Nations. He was always an ardent political activist. In 1975, he became involved with the Montoneros, though he later distanced himself from the group. After the 1976 Argentine coup, he was forced into exile from Argentina. In 1976, his son Marcelo and his pregnant daughter-in-law, Maria Claudia, aged 20 and 19, were kidnapped from their home. They became two of the 30,000 desaparecidos, the people who were forcibly "vanished" without a trace during the reign of the military junta. In 1990, Gelman was led to identify his son's remains (he had been executed and buried in a barrel filled with sand and cement). Years later, in 2000, he was able to trace his granddaughter, born in a backdoor hospital before Maria Claudia's murder and given to a pro-government family in Uruguay. The remains of Maria Claudia have not yet been recovered.

During his long exile, Gelman lived in Europe until 1988, then in the United States and later in Mexico, with his wife, Argentine psychologist Mara La Madrid.

In 1997, Gelman received the Argentine National Poetry Prize, in recognition of his life's work, and in 2007 the Cervantes Prize, the most important prize for Spanish-language writers. He also had a long and brilliant career as journalist, writing for the Argentine newspaper Pagina/12 until his death.

Gelman included Uruguayan police officer Hugo Campos Hermida in a legal suit lodged in Spain for the "disappearance" of his daughter-in-law in Uruguay.[3]

His granddaughter

At the beginning of the 21st century, Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle Ibáñez ordered an investigation and Gelman's granddaughter, Macarena Gelman was found. Macarena, who had lived as an adopted child, took the surnames of her parents and started a career as a human rights activist.

Death

Gelman died at age 83 of complications with preleukemia at his home in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City.[4] His granddaughter, Macarena, flew in from Uruguay to attend the funeral. Three days of national mourning was declared by Argentina's President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Personal papers

Juan Gelman's archive which includes drafts of writings and a collection of files he kept pertaining to his human rights investigations is available for research at the Manuscripts Division in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University.[5]

Works

Published in English translation

Published in Spanish

Poetry

Anthologies

Prose

Criticism of his works

Documentary

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Encabeza Peña Nieto la ceremonia por el XXV Aniversario de Conaculta. Fondo de Cultura Económica. 18 July 2015. Antes de iniciar su mensaje, el mandatario rindió homenaje a la memoria del poeta argentino, naturalizado mexicano, Juan Gelman, por quien se ofreció un minuto de silencio..
  2. "I am the only Argentine in the family. My parents and my two siblings were Ukrainian. Theyimmigrated in 1928." Juan Gelman: Semblanza In the same brief autobiographical text, Gelman states that his mother was a student of medicine and the daughter of a rabbi from a small town. "[My parents] never shut us up in a ghetto, culturally or otherwise. [...] I received no religious education." Gelman would later write poems in Ladino, i.e., Judeo-Spanish; he is also known for being sharply critical of Israel.
  3. http://www.lr21.com.uy/politica/63458-a-los-73-anos-murio-el-inspector-mayor-r-hugo-campos-hermida A los 73 años murió el inspector mayor (r) Hugo Campos Hermida
  4. Web site: Fallece a los 83 años el escritor Juan Gelman. 14 January 2014. Excélsior. 18 July 2015.
  5. Web site: Juan Gelman Papers (C1511) -- Juan Gelman Papers. findingaids.princeton.edu. 2016-10-12.
  6. Web site: Pobre presidente: el documental Jorge Batlle, entre el cielo y el infierno . 22 May 2024 . 30 July 2024 . . Lagos . José Gabriel . es .

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