En vida

by Haroldo Conti

“No sé si tiene sentido pero me digo cada vez: contá la historia de la gente como si cantaras en medio de un camino, despojate de toda pretensión y cantá, simplemente cantá con todo tu corazón: que nadie recuerde tu nombre sino toda esa vieja y sencilla historia.”

Los personajes de En vida son gente simple, tenaz, que lucha por conseguir el sustento para hoy, tal vez para mañana. Más allá de esa meta el porvenir es incierto. Y no sólo lo material sino también el amor, la amistad, la salud, la propia vida con sus alegrías ocasionales. Oreste, el protagonista, es uno de ellos. También lo son Roque, el inquieto Paco, el gordo Sixto, Pino. Hombres duros, solitarios, que habitan el Bajo de Buenos Aires, próximo al río. Esa zona portuaria en la que una ciudad puede ser cualquier ciudad. Allí, entre bares y prostíbulos, los amigos se reúnen cada noche a jugar a las barajas, o buscan mitigar la soledad abrazados a una mujer ocasional al son de una rumba o de un bolero.
La intensidad concentrada, la lúcida amargura han hecho de En vida una novela fundamental en la obra de Haroldo Conti. En 1971, recibió el Premio Barral de España otorgado por un jurado integrado, entre otros, por Gabriel García Márquez y Mario Vargas Llosa.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Haroldo Pedro Conti (Chacabuco, 25 de mayo de 1925 - secuestrado y desaparecido en Buenos Aires el 5 de mayo de 1976) fue un escritor y docente argentino, considerado uno de los más destacados de la generación del sesenta, junto con Rodolfo Walsh, Antonio Di Benedetto, Héctor Tizón y Juan José Saer. En 1975 fue galardonado con el Premio Casa de las Américas por su novela Mascaró el cazador americano.

Conti became a secondary-school teacher of Latin, but his passion was for writing, especially for the cinema, and considered putting aside fiction for this at one stage; South-East was first conceived as a cinematic script, and film directors have brought other of his literary work to the screen, taking advantage of its preference for visual strength in the narrative.

Each of Conti’s four novels was awarded a literary prize, culminating in the prestigious Casa de las Américas prize for his last novel, Mascaró, el cazador americano [Mascaró, the American Hunter] (1975). To date, only South-East appears in English translation. Conti also wrote short stories.

Politics forces its way into the story of Conti’s life, but his political instinct was an expression of his interest in ordinary folk: to men as individuals, not to man in the abstract. Conti’s interest in the lives of others wasn’t merely intellectual: he became a keen fisherman, and decided to build a boat; he spent a lot of time with an otter-hunter at one point – and all of this investigation went into his writing, of which South-East was the first important published expression.

Political repression in Argentina intensified following the military coup of March 1976, and Conti was warned by someone with links to the military that his life was in danger. But he decided against exile, and offered his home in the capital as a place of refuge for others under threat of kidnap and murder. Until he was taken from the streets in the early hours of May 5 1976, and is since then listed amongst the many thousands of the "disappeared".