Biography
Julio Florencio Cortázar (1914-1984) was an Argentine novelist, poet, playwright, and translator. He was born on August 26, 1914, in Brussels, where his father worked as an employee at the Argentine embassy in Belgium. Until the age of four, he lived in Geneva and Zurich, as Belgium had been occupied by the German forces of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His family later returned to Argentina. When Julio was six, his father left the family and was never seen again. He grew up with his sister and their mother, who passed on to them her love of reading. Julio was a frail child and often spent long periods in bed reading. As he grew older, he studied literature and worked as a teacher while also writing and contributing to literary magazines.In 1944, he became a professor of French literature at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza. However, under political pressure from the Peronists, he resigned in June 1946. He subsequently worked as a translator. In 1951, at the age of 37, he moved to Paris, where he spent most of the rest of his life, making only occasional journeys to Latin America and other European capitals.
In 1961, Cortázar visited Cuba and openly supported Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Later, he supported Salvador Allende in Chile and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He continued to visit Argentina regularly, but in the early 1970s he was effectively exiled by the country's military dictatorship. After the victory of Raúl Alfonsín's democratically elected government, he was finally able to make one last visit to his homeland, where he was received by his compatriots as a revolutionary hero.
Cortázar is regarded as one of the greatest Latin American writers and as one of the most innovative and original authors of his time. Among his many important works, his novel Hopscotch (1963) stands out, as do his numerous short stories. Several of his stories were adapted into films, most notably Blowup (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Cortázar died of cancer in Paris in February 1984.