Artistic and Literature in Spanish America

Tomás Eloy Martínez

Lic. Patricia Nigro

Tomás Eloy Martínez(1934-2010)

• Film critic for La Nación.

• Primera Plana and Panorama: political

magazines.

• Página 12.

• He was a teacher at Rutgers University,

New Jersey.

• Columnist for The New York Times and

La Nación.

• His most important novels are La novela de

Perón (1985) and Santa Evita (1995).

Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)

• He was born in Tucumán. He got his

degree in Latin American and Spanish

Literature.

• Film critic for La Nación.(1957-1961)

• Editor in chief of Primera Plana (1962-

1969) and Panorama (1970-1972): both

political magazines.

• Director of La Opinión Literary Supplement.

(1972-1975)

• Between 1975 and 1983, he lived in exile

in Caracas, Venezuela.

• He founded two journals El Diario de

Caracas and Siglo XXI in México.

(1977- 1979)

• He also created the Cultural

Supplement of Página 12. (1991-

1995)

• Since 1996, he became columnist

for The New York Times

Syndicate, El País (Spain) and La

Nación.

Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)

• He was a teacher at

University of Maryland.

(1984-1987)

• Since 1995 till his death, he

took a position as distinguished

professor and director of the

Latin American Studies

program at Rutgers

University, New Jersey.

Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)

Tomás Eloy Martínez: a writer

• His most important novels are La

novela de Perón (1985) and

Santa Evita (1995).

• He won the Alfaguara award for

El vuelo de la reina (2002).

• In 2009, he became a member of

National Journalism Academy.

• He was one of the teachers of

Fundación para un Nuevo

Periodismo, created by his friend

Gabriel García Márquez.

Tomás Eloy Martínez: a writer

• Santa Evita, the story of

what happened with her

body after Perón outhrown

in 1955, was translated to

32 languages and

published in 50 countries

(1995). Its Argentinian best

seller novel.

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his writing style

• La pasión según Trelew

(1974) was part of the

journalistic movement the

New Journalism because it

is a journalistic report to

find the truth of what was

called the “Trelew

masacre” (Trelew

manslought) (1972).

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his writing style

• True fiction: to take

historical people and facts

and write a novel about

them.

• New Journalism: to use

literary techniques to tell

the thruth of any fact.

• E. g. Truman Capote’s In

cold blood.

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his writing style

• A novel was, in his own words, a full freedom

statement and so a novelist can manage reality as he

needs it.

• He agrees with Hayden White that narratives could

be considered the key to work out the problem of

transforming knowledge into language.

• He tried to reach something that couldn’t be reached in

another way: the story behind the history.

• He tells fictional events as if they were real facts.

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas

• His main subject is Argentinians

history, our identity, the political

events we have suffered, our

people and our leaders.

• He was trying to find who we are

and why we are by writing

novels, articles and by teaching

about our best writers.

• He did not write non fiction but

stories full of historical

characters.

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas

• Every great writer of Latin

America was once a

journalist: Hernández,

Borges, Arlt, Gabriel

García Márquez

(Colombia), Juan Carlos

Onetti (Uruguay), Augusto

Roa Bastos (Paraguay),

Alfonso Reyes (México),

José Martí (Cuba)...

• Every great journalist become

sooner or later in a great writer.

• He said: “What I write is what I

am, and if I am not faithful to

myself, I can’t be faithful to my

readers.”

• “Only what is written is

historical.” (Robin Collingwood).

It means what is written is

permanent.

Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas

• Courage is needed to write and

to talk about reality.

• Journalism has two goals: taking

care of the language (its tool)

and its ethic.

• Journalists don’t need to

reconcile with nobody and with

nothing.

• A journalist must constantly

think about his reader. He

must be honest, research a lot,

be faithful to the truth no matter

what.

Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas

• Journalism is a way of thinking,

of creating, of helping people to

have a better life.

• Journalists are privileged

witnesses.

• It is important to keep calm and

to have eyes wide open.

• Justice and freedom should not

be separated. In fact, this is what

democracy means.