Project Description

José Pablo Feinmann

(1943-2021)
Argentina

José Pablo Feinmann was born in Buenos Aires in 1943, where he lived and where he studied and taught philosophy at the University. He is the author of numerous essays and novels, as well as plays and scripts that have been successfully brought to the screen.

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José Pablo Feinmann© Laura Pribluda

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La filosofia y el barro de la historia

Whichever genre Feinmann works in, his writing is always characterised by a concern with contemporary issues: the relationship between current problems and history; the tangled links between science and politics; or questions of individual and collective guilt. Philosophy, for Feinmann, is a daily necessity, and his approaches to thought have struck such a chord that he has been able to draw an unusually wide audience: his courses are attended by hundreds of people, and the prestigious newspaper Página/12, which published a series of weekly supplements entitled La filosofia y el barro de la historia (“Philosophy and the Mud of History”) in late 2006/early 2007, had to double the number of instalments. In 2008 this outstanding work was published by Planeta in Buenos Aires. Feinmann takes his readers along on a philosophical journey through the past centuries, from Descartes via Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, the Frankfurter School and Sartre to Foucault’s postmodernism. The great Argentinean thinker Feinmann, who courts controversy in his occasional television appearances, sets out to teach, and does so in a highly serious manner. Yet he also aims to provide new, critical food for thought of his own.

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Peronismo

In his work, Peronismo (“Peronism”), José Pablo Feinmann reveals the most controversial political phenomenon in Argentina. Peronismo is an impassioned and shocking book as well as a critical one. Without shying away from polemic or controversy, it shines a light onto a story as dark as it is vital, as fascinating as it is tragic: it examines in depth the extreme ban on Peronism and finally unmasks Perón due to his participation in aberrant events.

Quotes

The Farm

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La sombra de Heidegger // La astucia de la razón // La crítica de las armas

For Feinmann, fiction represents another, often more sublime way of approaching philosophical issues. His novel, La sombra de Heidegger (“Heidegger’s Shadow”) is the concluding volume in a trilogy which also includes the novels La astucia de la razón (“The Cunning of Reason”) and La crítica de las armas (“The Critique of Weapons”). The focus of La sombra de Heidegger is the character Dieter Müller, a German professor and a pupil of Heidegger who had always recognised his master’s intellectual superiority. But unlike Heidegger – who was appointed Director of Heidelberg University in 1933 with the support of the Nazi party – he went into exile in Argentina after the war. Built up into an involving and tragic individual fate, this novel casts a critical light on the figure of one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.

Quote

Franco Volpi

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Timote

The novel Timote reconstructs the kidnapping and murder of the Argentine general and former president Aramburu by the Montoneros, a revolutionary Peronist organization. The event is described graphically in all facets of its significance: as a milestone in Argentine history, a clash of the generations and a dispute between the ideological camps fighting over the person of Perón. Timote is a small town in the province of Buenos Aires where Aramburu was taken, which became a symbol for the then beginning Argentine dictatorship. Feinmann deliberately fictionalises the events, not letting them go uncommented as a reaction to the dictatorship by the Montoneros, but embedding them within the personal development of the young men and women involved. The characters’ thoughts, Aramburu’s interrogation and the group’s communiqués form the matrix of ideas that Feinmann weaves around the killing. He asks searching questions, looking behind the superficial factors: who are the Montoneros, who claim to represent the people? Who were Perón and his wife, who claimed to love the people? Who is Aramburu, who claims to protect democracy? The answers the author finds are many and varied. Timote is going to be performed by El Teatro Argentino de La Plata as opera in 2011, with Marcelo Lombardero as stage director and Oscar Golijov as composer.

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Carter en New York

Joe Carter, an LA detective and contract killer, is forced by the mafia to take on a case. In Carter en New York, the big boss wants to know who his wife is cheating on him with. Even tough-as-nails Carter is surprised at what he finds out: She is having an affair with her husband’s mistress. During his investigations, Carter dives into the Broadway world of celebrities and wannabes, learning about their dark sides and sexual obsessions, but also seeing past the facades. Carter is the hero of a new series, a cynic and a morbid patriot blasting his way through the world of showbiz, political intrigues and criminality. Feinmann’s sparkling and razor-sharp analysis of US society and its idols pulls out all the satirical stops.

RIGHTS

NOVELS
Últimos días de la víctima

Buenos Aires: Espasa Calpe 1979; Seix Barral 2006, 259 p.
filmed by Adolfo Aristarain 1982
France: Albin Michel 1991, Le Livre de Poche 1993 · Italy: Feltrinelli 1993 · Spain: Grup 62 2012

Ni el tiro del final
Buenos Aires: Pomaire 1981, 269 p.
France: Albin Michel 1996 · Italy: Giunti 1999

El ejército de ceniza
Buenos Aires: Alianza 1994, 188 p.
France: Albin Michel 1992 · Italy: Giunti 1995; Sur 2015

Los crímenes de van Gogh
Buenos Aires: Planeta 1994, 306 p.
France: Gallimard 1999 · Germany: Kunstmann 2001, edition diá · Italy: Marcos & Marcos 1998

El mandato
Buenos Aires: Norma 2000, 252 p.

La astucia de la razón
Buenos Aires: Norma 2001, 2011, 301 p.

El cadáver imposible
Buenos Aires: Norma 2003, 152 p.
Germany: Kunstmann 1997, edition diá · Italy: Zanzibar 1993

La crítica de las armas
Buenos Aires: Norma 2003, 375 p.
Italy: Baldini Castoldi Dalai 2005

La sombra de Heidegger
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2005, 197 p.
Brasil: Planeta 2006 · Italy: Neri Pozza 2007 · Turkey: Dogan 2009 · US: Texas Tech University Press 2016

Timote
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2009, 255 p.
Film rights sold, director: Adolfo Aristarain
US: Texas Tech University Press 2012

Carter en New York
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2009, 234 p.
Spain: Sonidos S2 (audiobook) 2010

Carter en Vietnam
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2009, 198 p.
Spain: Sonidos S2 (audiobook) 2010

ESSAYS
Pasiones de Celuloide. Ensayos y variedades sobre cine
Buenos Aires: Norma 2000, 403 p.

Escritos imprudentes. El Horizonte y el Abismo
Buenos Aires: Norma 2002, 583 p.

La sangre derramada. Ensayo sobre la violencia política
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2003, 378 p.

Escritos imprudentes II. América Latina y el imperio global
Buenos Aires: Norma 2005, 435 p.

El cine por asalto. Ensayo y variaciones
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2006, 292 p.

La filosofía y el barro de la historia
Buenos Aires: Página/12 2006-07, Planeta 2008, 797 p.

Peronismo. Filosofía política de una persistencia argentina. Tomo I. De 1943 al primer regreso de Perón (1972)
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2010, 2011, 740 p.

Peronismo. Filosofía política de una persistencia argentina. Tomo II. Del primer regreso de Perón al golpe miltiar de 1976
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2011, 862 p.

El Flaco. Diálogos irreverentes con Néstor Kirchner
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2011, 319 p.

Filosofía política del poder mediático
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2013, 659 p.

PLAYS
Sabor a Freud

Buenos Aires: Norma 2002, 95 p.

Cuestiones con Ernesto Che Guevara
Buenos Aires, 77 p.
France: L’Harmattan 2011, Théâtre du petit Montparnasse 2011

SCRIPTS
Últimos días de la víctima
En retirada
Tango Bar
Play murder for me
Cuerpos perdidos
Eva Perón.