Who is Adolfo Bioy Casares?

Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Bioy Casares was born on September 15, 1914, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and passed away on March 8, 1999, in the same city. He was a renowned narrator, journalist, translator, and editor, widely recognized as one of the greatest figures in the realm of fantastic, detective, and science fiction narratives in Latin America.

Bioy Casares attended the Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza of the University of Buenos Aires for part of his secondary education. Although he initially started but did not complete studies in Law and Philosophy and Letters, he had already become fluent in English, French (a language he had been speaking since the age of four), and German before reaching the age of thirty.

In 1932, Bioy Casares met Jorge Luis Borges at Villa Ocampo, Victoria Ocampo’s estate in San Isidro. Borges became his lifelong great friend, and together, they collaborated on several detective stories under various pen names, with Honorio Bustos Domecq being the most well-known pseudonym.

In 1940, Bioy Casares married Silvina Ocampo, Victoria Ocampo’s younger sister, who was also a writer and painter. That same year, he published “La invención de Morel” (The Invention of Morel) with an introduction by Borges. In the introduction, Borges highlights the absence of science fiction predecessors in Spanish literature, presents Bioy Casares as a pioneer of the new genre, and draws connections between his work and that of H.G. Wells. The novel won the First Municipal Prize for Literature in 1941 and later inspired Alain Resnais’s film “Last Year at Marienbad.”

Notable Works:
Novels:

• “The Invention of Morel” (1940)
• “Escape Plan” (1945)
• “The Dream of Heroes” (1954)
• “Diary of the War of the Pig” (1969)
• “Sleeping in the Sun” (1973)
• “The Adventure of a Photographer in La Plata” (1985)
• “An Uneven Champion” (1993)
• “From One World to Another” (1998)

Short Stories:

• “Prologue” (1929)
• “17 Shots Against the Future” (1933)
• “The Homemade Statue” (1936)
• “Luis Greve, Dead” (1937)
• “The Celestial Plot” (1948)
• “The Eve Faust” (1949)
• “Prodigious Story” (1956)
• “Garland with Loves” (1959)
• “The Side of the Shadow” (1962)
• “The Great Seraph” (1967)
• “The Hero of Women” (1978)
• “Wild History” (1986)

Collaborative Works:

• “Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi” (1942)
• “Two Memorable Fantasies” (1946), with Jorge Luis Borges
• “Those Who Love, Hate” (1946), with Silvina Ocampo
• “A Model for Death” (1946), with Jorge Luis Borges
• “Chronicles of Bustos Domecq” (1967), with Jorge Luis Borges
• “New Stories by Domecq Busts” (1977), with Jorge Luis Borges