Project Description
National Prize for Poetry 1962Silvina Ocampo
(1903-1993)
Argentina
Silvina Ocampo was born in Buenos Aires in 1903 to an elite Argentine family. With her husband Bioy Casares and their close friend Jorge Luis Borges, Ocampo collaborated on two anthologies while at the same time publishing fiction and poetry on her own. A short story writer and a poet of very rare talent, Silvina Ocampo was awarded the National Prize for Poetry in 1962, among several other literary awards. She died in Buenos Aires in 1993.
© Adolfo Bioy Casares//
About her work
Ocampo’s lasting fame rests on her volumes of short stories, published between 1937 and 1988, such as Autobiografía de Irene (“Irene`s Autobiography”, 1948) and La furia y otros cuentos (“The Fury and other Stories”, 1959) as well as posthumously published works such as Las repeticiones y otros cuentos (“The Repetitions and other Stories”, 2006) or her novel La torre sin fin (“The Topless Tower”, 2006).
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The Promise
In 2011 Sudamericana published Ocampo’s “posthumous autobiography”. The novel The Promise (“La promesa”) is an intelligent, finely observed and bizarre portrait of a number of people and their relationships to one another. When a woman falls overboard on a ship, she makes a promise to herself: Should she survive, she will write a book about all the people who have played a role in her life, be it large or small.
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The Topless Tower
On the arrival of a mysterious stranger laden with paintings, Leandro finds his quiet life disrupted instantly and mysteriously. He awakens locked in a windowless room in a topless tower, the subject of one of the stranger’s eerie paintings. His childish voice draws the reader into a mythical world full of imaginary beings.
RIGHTS
ORIGINAL EDITIONS AND RIGHTS SOLD
The Promise (“La promesa”)
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2011, 144 p.
Albania: Dituria ·Italy: La Nuova Frontiera · Norway: Meteor Forlag · Turkey: Notos Kitap · USA: City Light 2019
NOVELS
The Topless Tower (“La torre sin fin”)
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2007, 124 p.
Turkey: Nebula (Paloma) 2018 · UK: Hesperus Press 2010; Calque Press
SHORT PROSE (SELECTION)
Nueve perros (in: “Cuentos completes”, Vol. 2, Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1999)
USA: Vista Higher Learning 2022
Las repeticiones y otros relatos inéditos
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2006, 296 p.
Romania: Univers
La furia y otros cuentos
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2006, 275 p.
China: Dook Media · Germany: Suhrkamp 1992 · Romania: Univers 2015
Invenciones del recuerdo
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2006, 183 p.
Autobiografía de Irene
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2008, 192 p.
China: Dook Media · Italy: Sellerio 2000
Ejércitos de la oscuridad
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2008, 185 p.
Cornelia frente al espejo
Buenos Aires: Lumen 1988, 262 p.
Spain: Tusquets Editores 2002
Feature film, 2012: nominated for 5 Awards by the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de la Argentina (incl. Best Screenplay – Adapted)
Las invitadas
Buenos Aires: 1961, Lumen 2016, 320 p.
China: Dook Media
Los que aman odian
(novella with Adolfo Bioy Casares)
Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1946, 158 p.
France: Cambourakis 2022
ANTHOLOGIES
France: Gallimard 1974, 1999 · Italy: Einaudi 1973, Editori Riuniti 1989, La Nuova Frontiera 2010 · Poland: Instytut Książki 2022 · Romania: Univers · USA: New York Review of Books 2015
Polish Anthology:
Amazing stories from Hispanoamerica
(“Opowiesci niesamowite z Hispanoameryki”)
(“La Expiación”, “Éxodo”, “Celestina”)
Polonia: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 2022
FOR CHILDREN
El caballo alado
Buenos Aires: Ediciones De La Flor 1996
Italy: Mondadori 2000
La naranja maravillosa
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2006, 118 p.
Italy: Mondadori 2001