{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Mario Levrero | image = | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = Jorge Mario Varlotta Levrero | birth_date = {{Birth date|1940|01|23|df=y}} | birth_place = Montevideo, Uruguay | death_date = {{Death date and age|2004|08|30|1940|01|23|df=y}} | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Author | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = }} '''Jorge Mario Varlotta Levrero''' (23 January 1940 – 30 August 2004), better known as '''Mario Levrero''', was a Uruguayan author. He authored nearly 20 novels as well as writing articles, columns, comic books and crosswords.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Thirlwell|first=Adam|date=7 March 2020|title=It's still not right|language=en|volume=42|work=London Review of Books|issue=6|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n06/adam-thirlwell/it-s-still-not-right|access-date=10 August 2021|issn=0260-9592}}</ref> His work is said to be influenced by Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll and surrealism.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Lockhart|first=Daniel|title=Latin American Science Fiction Writers : An A-to-Z Guide|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2004|isbn=9780313305535|location=Connecticut|pages=113–114}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Cummins|first=Anthony|date=30 June 2019|title=Empty Words review – riddling but enticing|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/30/empty-words-mario-levrero-review-uruguays-kafka|access-date=10 August 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Flores|first=Angel|url=http://archive.org/details/spanishamericana00flor|title=Spanish American authors : the twentieth century|date=1992|publisher=New York : Wilson|others=Internet Archive|isbn=978-0-8242-0806-6|pages=476}}</ref> Throughout his life he shunned publicity and was difficult with interviewers. Regardless, he became a cult figure in Uruguay and Argentina.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=McDermott|first=Annie|date=15 May 2019|title=On Translating Mario Levrero, The Kafka of Uruguay|url=https://lithub.com/on-translating-mario-levrero-the-kafka-of-uruguay/|access-date=10 August 2021|website=Literary Hub|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":4" />
His writing was often branded as science fiction or genre fiction, a categorisation he strongly rejected.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" /> Critics have commented on the both sinister and humorous nature of his work.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":0" />
== Biography == Levrero was born in Montevideo in 1940 to an Italian-Uruguayan family.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /> He stopped attending school at age 14 due to a heart murmur and instead spent his time in bed, reading and listening to tango music.<ref name=":2" />thumb|357x357px|A memorial event for Mario Levrero in 2014Having never finished school, he claimed that attending a tango club was his university. In his twenties, he ran a secondhand bookshop with a friend and was briefly a member of the Communist Party of Uruguay's youth wing.<ref name=":2" /> His first short stories were published in science fiction magazines in Buenos Aires.<ref name=":1" /> In 1966, Levrero wrote his first novel ''La ciudad'' (''The City'')''.''<ref name=":2" /> He claimed the book was his attempt to "translate Kafka into Uruguayan". Published in 1970, the novel became part of what he described as an "involuntary trilogy" along with ''París'' (''Paris'') (1980) and ''El lugar'' (''The Place'') (1982).<ref name=":0" /> By the 1980s, Levrero was gaining more mainstream recognition after receiving an award for his novella ''Desplazamientos'' (''Displacements'')''.''<ref name=":4" />
Levrero received a Guggenheim Grant in 2000 to finish work on a project he had begun in 1984 that he called ''La novela luminosa'' (''The Luminous Novel'').<ref name=":3">{{Cite news|last=Thirlwell|first=Adam|date=3 August 2021|title=This Novel Is a Record of Its Own Failure. Somehow It Succeeds.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/books/review/luminous-novel-mario-levrero.html|access-date=10 August 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Intended to be an account of a transcendental experience, the posthumously published work ended up as a composite of a diary detailing failed attempts at writing the novel and unedited chapters of the incomplete novel.<ref name=":3" /> It is widely regarded as his masterpiece.<ref name=":2" />
Levrero died in Montevideo in 2004.<ref name=":0" />
Levrero's work has inspired Latin American writers such as Rodolfo Fogwill, César Aira and Alejandro Zambra.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mario Levrero in Conversation with Mario Levrero|url=https://believermag.com/logger/mario-levrero-self-interview/|access-date=10 August 2021|website=Believer Magazine|language=en-US}}</ref>
==Work==
===Novels=== * ''La ciudad'', 1970 * ''Diario de un canalla/Burdeos'', 1972 * ''París'', 1980 * ''El lugar'', 1982 * ''Fauna/Desplazamientos'', 1987 * ''La Banda del Ciempiés'', 1989 * ''El alma de Gardel'', 1996 * ''El discurso vacío'', 1996 * ''Dejen todo en mis manos'', 1998 * ''La novela luminosa'', 2005 * ''Trilogía involuntaria'' (includes ''La ciudad'', ''París'', and ''El lugar''), 2008 * ''Nick Carter se divierte mientras el lector es asesinado y yo agonizo y otras novelas'', 2012 * ''La Banda del Ciempiés'', 2015
===Short story collections=== * ''La máquina de pensar en Gladys'', 1970 (“The Thinking-About-Gladys Machine”. 2024) * ''Todo el tiempo'', 1982 * ''Aguas salobres'', 1983 * ''Los muertos'', 1986 * ''Espacios libres'', 1987 * ''El portero y el otro'', 1992 * ''Ya que estamos'', 2001 * ''Los carros de fuego'', 2003 * ''Cuentos completos'', 2019
===Comic books===
* ''Santo Varón/I'', with artwork by Lizán, 1986 * ''Los profesionales'', with artwork by Lizán, 1988 * ''Historietas reunidas de Jorge Varlotta'', 2016
===Other writings=== * ''Manual de parapsicología'', 1978 * ''Caza de conejos'', 1986 (reissued in 2012) * ''Irrupciones I'', 2001 * ''Irrupciones II'', 2001
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Levrero, Mario}} Category:1940 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Uruguayan science fiction writers Category:Uruguayan short story writers