Tomás Eloy Martínez
Encyclopedia
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
journalist and writer.
Life and work
Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Martínez obtained a degree in SpanishSpanish literature
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...
and Latin American literature
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...
from the University of Tucumán, and an MA at the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
. From 1957 to 1961 he was a film critic in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
for the La Nación newspaper, and he then was editor in chief (1962-69) of the magazine Primera Plana. From 1969 to 1970 he worked as a reporter in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1969 Martínez interviewed former Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
, who was exiled in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. These interviews were the basis for two of his more celebrated novels, La Novela de Perón (1985) and Santa Evita (1995). In 1970 he and many former writers of Primera Plana worked at the magazine Panorama, where Martínez was the director.
On 15 August 1972 he learned of the uprising of political prisoners in the jail at Rawson
Rawson
Rawson may refer to:Places*Rawson, Chubut, the capital of Chubut Province in Argentina, named after Guillermo Rawson*Rawson Department, Chubut, Argentina*Rawson Department, San Juan Province, Argentina...
, Chubut Province
Chubut Province
Chubut a province in the southern part of Argentina situated between the 42nd parallel south and the 46th parallel south , the Andes range separating Argentina from Chile, and the Atlantic ocean...
. Panorama was the only publication in Buenos Aires that reported the correct story of the affair in Rawson, which differed significantly from the official version of the de facto Argentine government. On 22 August he was fired at the behest of the government, whereupon he went to Rawson and the neighboring city of Trelew
Trelew
-References:La Pasión según Trelew, Espejo de la Argentina, 1997, Editorial Planeta Argentina S.A.I.C.; Third Edition: April 2000, Buenos Aires, ISBN 950-742-859-3-External links:* * * *...
where he reported the Massacre of Trelew in his book The Passion According to Trelew. The book was banned by the Argentine dictatorship.
For three years (1972-75) Martínez was in charge of the cultural supplement of La Nación
La Nación
La Nación is an Argentine daily newspaper. The country's leading conservative paper, the centrist Clarín is its main competitor. It is the only newspaper in Argentina still published in broadsheet format.-Overview:...
, after which he lived in exile (1975-83) in Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, where he remained active as a journalist, co-founding the newspaper El Diario de Caracas
El Diario de Caracas
El Diario de Caracas was a newspaper published in Caracas, Venezuela. It was co-founded in 1979 by Diego Arria and the writer Tomas Eloy Martinez, an Argentine exile. Another Argentine exile, Rodolfo Terragno, was at one time its editor-in-chief....
. In his book "The Memoirs of the General" he recounts that he was threatened by the "Triple A", the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was a right-wing death squad active in Argentina during the mid-1970s, particularly active under Isabel Perón's rule . Initially associated with the Peronist right, the organisation was bitterly in conflict with the Peronist left and other left organizations...
, and on one occasion, gunmen held a pistol to the head of his 3-year-old son because they were witnesses to a crime Martínez believed to be an operation led by the far-right paramilitary group. He subsequently started the newspaper Siglo 21 in Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and created the literary supplement Primer Plano for the newspaper Página/12
Página/12
Página/12 is a newspaper based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Página/12 was founded on May 25, 1987, by journalist Jorge Lanata in association with writer Osvaldo Soriano and investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky...
in Buenos Aires.
Martínez has also been a teacher and lecturer. He taught (1984-87) at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
. In 1995, he took a position as distinguished professor and director of the Latin American Studies program at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, New Jersey. He lived in nearby Highland Park, New Jersey
Highland Park, New Jersey
Highland Park is a borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 13,982....
until about 3 years ago when he returned to Argentina to live. He wrote columns for La Nación and the New York Times syndicate, and his articles have appeared in many newspapers and journals in Latin America.
He has published a number of books, one of which, Santa Evita, has been translated into 32 languages and published in 50 countries. He was awarded the Guggenheim
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and Woodrow Wilson fellowships
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is a private non-profit foundation based in Princeton, New Jersey. It administers programs that support leadership development and build organizational capacity in education. Its current signature program is the...
, and won the 2002 Premio Alfaguara de Novela
Premio Alfaguara de Novela
Premio Alfaguara de Novela is a Spanish-language literary award. The award is one of the most prestigious in the Spanish language. It includes a prize of $175,000 making it one of the richest literary prizes in the world. It is sponsored by Alfaguara, a publisher.The prize was created in 1965 by...
for the novel Flight of the Queen. His works deal primarily (but not exclusively) with Argentina during and after the rule of Juan Domingo Perón and his wife, Eva Duarte de Perón (Evita).
Martínez died in Buenos Aires on 31 January 2010 after a long battle against a brain tumor.
An exhaustive list of his works may be found in the book "The Other Reality -- Anthology" with a prologue by Cristine Mattos, Buenos Aires, 'Fondo de Cultura Economica de Argentina, S.A.',2006
Main publications
- Sacred (1969)
- The Passion According to Trelew (1973, reissued in 1997)
- The Perón Novel (1985)
- La Mano del Amo (1991)
- The Hand of the Master (1991)
- Santa Evita (1995)
- The Memoirs of the General (1996)
- Common Place - Death (1998)
- The Argentine Dream (1999)
- True Fictions (2000)
- The Flight of the Queen (2002)
- Requiem for a Lost Country (2003)
- The Lives of the General (2004)
- The Tango Singer (2004)
- Purgatory (2008)