Héctor Abad Faciolince
Encyclopedia
Héctor Abad Faciolince is a Colombian
novelist, essayist, journalist
, and editor
. Abad is considered one of the most talented "post-boom" writers in Latin American literature
. Abad is best known for his bestselling novels Angosta, and more recently, El Olvido que Seremos (t. Oblivion: A Memoir).
(Colombia
), the only boy -among five sisters- of Cecilia Faciolince and Héctor Abad Gómez. Abad’s father was a prominent medical doctor, university professor, and human rights leader whose holistic vision of healthcare led him to found the Colombian National School of Public Health.
After graduating from an Opus Dei
-run private Catholic school, Abad moved to Mexico City
in 1978 where his father was appointed as Cultural Counselor of the Colombian Embassy in Mexico. While in Mexico
, he attended literature, creative writing and poetry workshops at La Casa del Lago, the first off campus cultural center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
.
In 1979, Abad moved back to Medellín and pursued studies in Philosophy and Literature at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Later in 1982, he was expelled from the University for writing an irreverent article against the Pope. He then moved to Italy
and completed studies on Modern Languages and Literature at the University of Turin
in 1986. Abad graduated with the highest academic honors of summa cum laude, and his thesis on Guillermo Cabrera Infante
’s Three Trapped Tigers was also awarded "Dignitá di Stampa" (a special distinction that literally means "worthy of publication").
Abad returned to his home town in Colombia in 1987 but later that year his father was murdered by the paramilitaries in a crime that brought about shock in Colombia. Abad himself was threatened with death and had to fly back immediately to Europe; first to Spain and finally to Italy where he established his residence for the next five years. While in Italy, Abad worked as a lecturer of Spanish at the University of Verona until 1992. At this time, he also earned a living translating literary works from Italian to Spanish. His translations of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
’s The Siren and Selected Writings, Gesualdo Bufalino
’s Qui Pro Quo and Umberto Eco
’s Annotations to The Name of the Rose have been well received critically. He has also translated numerous works by Italo Calvino
, Leonardo Sciascia
, Primo Levi
, and Natalia Ginzburg
. Upon returning to Colombia, Abad was appointed director of the University of Antioquia Journal (1993–1997). Abad has been columnist for prestigious newspapers and magazines in Colombia, such as Revista Cromos
, La Hoja, El Malpensante, Revista Semana
, and Revista Cambio, the latter co-founded by the Nobel-prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez
. He has also worked as a journalist for the newspapers El Mundo, El Colombiano, and El Espectador
. He is a regular contributor of other Latin American and Spanish
papers and magazines.
Abad has been a guest speaker at a number of universities worldwide including: Columbia University
, Pennsylvania State University
, University of Verona
, University of Turin
, University of Cagliari
, University of Bologna
, and University of Florence
. He has also been seasonal lecturer at the University of Vercelli
. Awarded the prestigious German Academic Exchange Service
(DAAD) fellowship, Abad lived in Berlin
from 2006 to 2007. He later returned to Medellín and was appointed editor-in-chief of the EAFIT University
Press. Since May 2008, Abad has been a member of the editorial board of El Espectador
, the oldest newspaper in Colombia.
Abad makes part of a new generation of authors that emerges in Colombia beyond magical realism. Among a notably circle of new Colombian writers such as Santiago Gamboa, Jorge Franco, Laura Restrepo
, and others(1), Abad’s literary works often focus on the personality of the narrator and the act of narration in its pursuit of protection and power.The richness, plot, irony, permanent enticement of the reader, the intensity of his stories, as well as the seriousness of the social, historical, and human research behind his confessional narrative, stand Abad as a brilliant recreator of the contemporary Colombian society through literature.
Malos Pensamientos (1991) is a sort of James Joyce
’s Dubliners
short tales that offer vivid, witty, and tightly focused observations of Medellín’s everyday life back in the eighties.
Asuntos de un Hidalgo Disoluto (1994; Eng. The Joy of Being Awake, 1996) deliberately models itself on two key 18th-century works: Laurence Sterne
's Tristram Shandy and Voltaire
's Candide
. Like Sterne's eccentric novel, The Joy of Being Awake is a bittersweet account of the life and opinions of a man at odds with himself, narrated in nonchronological fashion with plenty of entertaining digressions and the occasional formal game. Narrated by a character who is a 71-year old Colombian millionaire, this work is a Colombian version of the Spanish picaresque novel
. Writing at the end of his life, the narrator looks back on his life of debauchery – and the failure of his high pretensions – through reminiscences to his younger mute secretary and lover, Cunegunda Bonaventura. The narrator often gives two versions of a memory: first what he wishes had happened and then what really happened. Abad's novel has a surface geniality that barely conceals undercurrents of discontent and despair.(2) This novel is considered as one of the better works of fiction to appear recently in Colombia.
Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes (1996; t: Cookbook for Sad Women) is a book of uncertain literary genre that combines a collection of false recipes (celacant, dinosaur, or mammoth meat) with real recipes. The book is neither a novel nor a collection of recipes, but rather a collection of sensitive short reflections about unhappiness. With a love for droll turns of phrase, Abad blends melancholy with even-seasoned irony in well-composed sentences.
Fragmentos de Amor Furtivo (1998; t: Fragments of Furtive Love). adopts the framework of the book of One Thousand and One Nights in modified form. Every night, a woman delays her lover's departure by telling him stories of her past lovers. As a background, Abad portraits a 1990s middle-class Medellín as a city besieged by pestilence and disenchantment, the most violent city in the world, where the intensity of violence buried its inhabitants alive. As in the Decameron, Susana and Rodrigo lock themselves up in the hills, far away from the city pestilence, and tell each other stories that would save them from death.
Basura (2000; t: Garbage) is perhaps Abad’s most experimental work. It alludes to role models, such as the storytellers Kafka or Pavese
who were angst ridden for life, and tells of a writer, Bernardo Davanzati, who tosses his works directly into the garbage can. His neighbour finds the texts and over time turns into an assiduous and diligent reader, to whom the many woes of being a writer are revealed. The act of writing and the role of the reader in literature are topics which are highlighted time and again.
Palabras sueltas (2002; t. Loose Words) is a book of brief cultural and political essays that were compiled from Abad’s most successful columns written for newspapers and cultural magazines.
Oriente Empieza en El Cairo (2002; t. East begins in Cairo) is a fascinating chronicle of a man’s voyage around the milenary Egypt
. The narrator, accompanied by two wives, depicts two versions of the everyday reality of a mythical mega-city that brings memories of other realities, images, and stories lived in distant Medellín.
Angosta (2004). Echoes of Hyperrealism rather than Magic Realism
are clearly present in this award-winning novel. In a fantastical parable of Colombian society, Abad describes a fictitious city whose population has been divided into three different castes living in separate sectors. Against the backdrop of the violent perpetuation of this system, a kaleidoscope of eccentrics from the ruling class is depicted. The novel recreates Colombia’s last years of violence with enormous synthetic capacity, complexity and efficiency, and a great deal of knowledge about the conflict. Abad provides us with one of the very best novels on the second wave of violence during the twentieth century in Colombia.(4) In March 2007, the Colombian magazine Semana published a list of the best work of fiction written in Spanish over the last 25 years. Among the thirty books to have received multiple votes was Abad's Angosta.
El Olvido que Seremos (2006; t. Oblivion: A Memoir). It took Abad nearly 20 years to get the courage to write this book about his father, his life and the circumstances of his murder by Colombian paramilitaries. The result is a cathartic and sentimental—but not clichéd—account of a man who fought against oppression, and social inequality and whose voice was shut down by six bullets in the head. The narration itself—which focuses more on the father’s activism and the father figure per se than on the man himself—was a process for the author; Abad goes beyond memory, opening up his own feelings and responses to his loss and depicts his father as the symbol of the ongoing fight against injustice, thus, illuminating and strengthening the Colombian memory.
Las Formas de la Pereza y Otros Ensayos (2007; t. The Forms of Laziness and Other Essays) is a book about the origin and manifestations of laziness. The author’s hypothesis is that laziness would not be a luxury but the original condition of human existence, and the starting point of all subsequent human creations.
An extensive bibliography about his writings has been prepared by Professor Augusto Escobar Mesa from the University of Antioquia
, and the Université de Montréal
.
Italian:
German:
Greek:
Portuguese:
Chinese:
Dutch:
Colombian people
Colombian people are from a multiethnic Spanish speaking nation in South America called Colombia. Colombians are predominantly Roman Catholic and are a mixture of Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians.-Demography:...
novelist, essayist, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, and editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
. Abad is considered one of the most talented "post-boom" writers in 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...
. Abad is best known for his bestselling novels Angosta, and more recently, El Olvido que Seremos (t. Oblivion: A Memoir).
Background
Héctor Abad Faciolince was born and raised in MedellínMedellín
Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...
(Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
), the only boy -among five sisters- of Cecilia Faciolince and Héctor Abad Gómez. Abad’s father was a prominent medical doctor, university professor, and human rights leader whose holistic vision of healthcare led him to found the Colombian National School of Public Health.
After graduating from an Opus Dei
Opus Dei
Opus Dei, formally known as The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei , is an organization of the Catholic Church that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. The majority of its membership are lay people, with secular priests under the...
-run private Catholic school, Abad moved to Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
in 1978 where his father was appointed as Cultural Counselor of the Colombian Embassy in Mexico. While in 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...
, he attended literature, creative writing and poetry workshops at La Casa del Lago, the first off campus cultural center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...
.
In 1979, Abad moved back to Medellín and pursued studies in Philosophy and Literature at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Later in 1982, he was expelled from the University for writing an irreverent article against the Pope. He then moved to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and completed studies on Modern Languages and Literature at the University of Turin
University of Turin
The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy...
in 1986. Abad graduated with the highest academic honors of summa cum laude, and his thesis on Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Guillermo Cabrera Infante was a Cuban novelist, essayist, translator, and critic; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín.A one-time supporter of the Castro regime, Cabrera Infante went into exile to London in 1965...
’s Three Trapped Tigers was also awarded "Dignitá di Stampa" (a special distinction that literally means "worthy of publication").
Abad returned to his home town in Colombia in 1987 but later that year his father was murdered by the paramilitaries in a crime that brought about shock in Colombia. Abad himself was threatened with death and had to fly back immediately to Europe; first to Spain and finally to Italy where he established his residence for the next five years. While in Italy, Abad worked as a lecturer of Spanish at the University of Verona until 1992. At this time, he also earned a living translating literary works from Italian to Spanish. His translations of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , was a Sicilian writer. He is most famous for his only novel, Il Gattopardo which is set in Sicily during the Risorgimento...
’s The Siren and Selected Writings, Gesualdo Bufalino
Gesualdo Bufalino
Gesualdo Bufalino , was an Italian writer.Gesualdo Bufalino was born in Comiso, Sicily. He studied literature and was, for most of his life a high-school professor in his hometown...
’s Qui Pro Quo and Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
’s Annotations to The Name of the Rose have been well received critically. He has also translated numerous works by Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
, Leonardo Sciascia
Leonardo Sciascia
Leonardo Sciascia was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including Open Doors and Il giorno della civetta .- Biography :Sciascia was born in Racalmuto, Sicily...
, Primo Levi
Primo Levi
Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
, and Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg née Levi was an award-winning Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize...
. Upon returning to Colombia, Abad was appointed director of the University of Antioquia Journal (1993–1997). Abad has been columnist for prestigious newspapers and magazines in Colombia, such as Revista Cromos
Revista Cromos
Revista Cromos is a Colombian varieties and photojournalism magazine, known for widely covering the Miss Colombia pageant on editions called Mini Cromos. It was founded in 1916 by Miguel Santiago Valencia and Abelardo Arboleda, both from the Colombian city of Popayán...
, La Hoja, El Malpensante, Revista Semana
Revista Semana
Semana or Revista Semana is a Colombian-based weekly magazine. It was founded in 1946 by Alberto Lleras Camargo , but was shut down after a controversial cover depicting Cuban leader Fidel Castro.In 1983, journalist Felipe López Caballero re-founded the magazine...
, and Revista Cambio, the latter co-founded by the Nobel-prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
. He has also worked as a journalist for the newspapers El Mundo, El Colombiano, and El Espectador
El Espectador
El Espectador is a newspaper with national circulation within Colombia, founded by Fidel Cano Gutiérrez on 22 March 1887 in Medellín and published since 1915 in Bogotá...
. He is a regular contributor of other Latin American and Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
papers and magazines.
Abad has been a guest speaker at a number of universities worldwide including: Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
, University of Verona
University of Verona
The University of Verona is a university located in Verona, Italy. It was founded in 1982 and is organized in 8+2 Faculties.-History:In Verona, at the beginning of the 1950s, a group of Catholic intellectuals established the "Ludovico Antonio Muratori" Free High School of Historical Science...
, University of Turin
University of Turin
The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy...
, University of Cagliari
University of Cagliari
The University of Cagliari is a university located in Cagliari, Italy. It was founded in 1620 and is organized in 11 Faculties.-History:The Studium Generalis Kalaritanum was founded in 1606 along the lines of the old Spanish Universities of Salamanca, Valladolid and Lérida...
, University of Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, and University of Florence
University of Florence
The University of Florence is a higher study institute in Florence, central Italy. One of the largest and oldest universities in the country, it consists of 12 faculties...
. He has also been seasonal lecturer at the University of Vercelli
Vercelli
Vercelli is a city and comune of about 47,000 inhabitants in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, around the year 600 BC.The city is situated on the river Sesia in the plain of the river...
. Awarded the prestigious German Academic Exchange Service
German Academic Exchange Service
The German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation....
(DAAD) fellowship, Abad lived in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
from 2006 to 2007. He later returned to Medellín and was appointed editor-in-chief of the EAFIT University
Universidad EAFIT
Universidad EAFIT , is a Colombian university located in El Poblado District - Medellín, This private university was created by the enterprise groups of Medellín in order to create a professional background for the development of the industrialization process in Colombia.It was approved by the...
Press. Since May 2008, Abad has been a member of the editorial board of El Espectador
El Espectador
El Espectador is a newspaper with national circulation within Colombia, founded by Fidel Cano Gutiérrez on 22 March 1887 in Medellín and published since 1915 in Bogotá...
, the oldest newspaper in Colombia.
Writing
Abad started his literary career at a very young age. He was just 12 years old when he wrote his first short stories and poetry works. Abad was twenty one years of age when he was awarded the 1980 Colombian National Short Story Prize for Piedras de Silencio (t. Stones of Silence), a short story about a miner trapped deep underground. While still in Italy, he published his first book, Malos Pensamientos (1991) but it was only upon returning to Colombia on 1993, that Abad become a full-time writer.Abad makes part of a new generation of authors that emerges in Colombia beyond magical realism. Among a notably circle of new Colombian writers such as Santiago Gamboa, Jorge Franco, Laura Restrepo
Laura Restrepo
Laura Restrepo is one of the most skilled writers to emerge from Latin America since the days of the Latin American Boom. She was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1950 and after about 25 years she began to write her first serious works, mainly political columns. Her first fiction novel, Isle of...
, and others(1), Abad’s literary works often focus on the personality of the narrator and the act of narration in its pursuit of protection and power.The richness, plot, irony, permanent enticement of the reader, the intensity of his stories, as well as the seriousness of the social, historical, and human research behind his confessional narrative, stand Abad as a brilliant recreator of the contemporary Colombian society through literature.
Malos Pensamientos (1991) is a sort of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
’s Dubliners
Dubliners
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century....
short tales that offer vivid, witty, and tightly focused observations of Medellín’s everyday life back in the eighties.
Asuntos de un Hidalgo Disoluto (1994; Eng. The Joy of Being Awake, 1996) deliberately models itself on two key 18th-century works: Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
's Tristram Shandy and Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's Candide
Candide
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...
. Like Sterne's eccentric novel, The Joy of Being Awake is a bittersweet account of the life and opinions of a man at odds with himself, narrated in nonchronological fashion with plenty of entertaining digressions and the occasional formal game. Narrated by a character who is a 71-year old Colombian millionaire, this work is a Colombian version of the Spanish picaresque novel
Picaresque novel
The picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society...
. Writing at the end of his life, the narrator looks back on his life of debauchery – and the failure of his high pretensions – through reminiscences to his younger mute secretary and lover, Cunegunda Bonaventura. The narrator often gives two versions of a memory: first what he wishes had happened and then what really happened. Abad's novel has a surface geniality that barely conceals undercurrents of discontent and despair.(2) This novel is considered as one of the better works of fiction to appear recently in Colombia.
Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes (1996; t: Cookbook for Sad Women) is a book of uncertain literary genre that combines a collection of false recipes (celacant, dinosaur, or mammoth meat) with real recipes. The book is neither a novel nor a collection of recipes, but rather a collection of sensitive short reflections about unhappiness. With a love for droll turns of phrase, Abad blends melancholy with even-seasoned irony in well-composed sentences.
Fragmentos de Amor Furtivo (1998; t: Fragments of Furtive Love). adopts the framework of the book of One Thousand and One Nights in modified form. Every night, a woman delays her lover's departure by telling him stories of her past lovers. As a background, Abad portraits a 1990s middle-class Medellín as a city besieged by pestilence and disenchantment, the most violent city in the world, where the intensity of violence buried its inhabitants alive. As in the Decameron, Susana and Rodrigo lock themselves up in the hills, far away from the city pestilence, and tell each other stories that would save them from death.
Basura (2000; t: Garbage) is perhaps Abad’s most experimental work. It alludes to role models, such as the storytellers Kafka or Pavese
Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator; he is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.- Early life and education :...
who were angst ridden for life, and tells of a writer, Bernardo Davanzati, who tosses his works directly into the garbage can. His neighbour finds the texts and over time turns into an assiduous and diligent reader, to whom the many woes of being a writer are revealed. The act of writing and the role of the reader in literature are topics which are highlighted time and again.
Palabras sueltas (2002; t. Loose Words) is a book of brief cultural and political essays that were compiled from Abad’s most successful columns written for newspapers and cultural magazines.
Oriente Empieza en El Cairo (2002; t. East begins in Cairo) is a fascinating chronicle of a man’s voyage around the milenary Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. The narrator, accompanied by two wives, depicts two versions of the everyday reality of a mythical mega-city that brings memories of other realities, images, and stories lived in distant Medellín.
Angosta (2004). Echoes of Hyperrealism rather than Magic Realism
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
are clearly present in this award-winning novel. In a fantastical parable of Colombian society, Abad describes a fictitious city whose population has been divided into three different castes living in separate sectors. Against the backdrop of the violent perpetuation of this system, a kaleidoscope of eccentrics from the ruling class is depicted. The novel recreates Colombia’s last years of violence with enormous synthetic capacity, complexity and efficiency, and a great deal of knowledge about the conflict. Abad provides us with one of the very best novels on the second wave of violence during the twentieth century in Colombia.(4) In March 2007, the Colombian magazine Semana published a list of the best work of fiction written in Spanish over the last 25 years. Among the thirty books to have received multiple votes was Abad's Angosta.
El Olvido que Seremos (2006; t. Oblivion: A Memoir). It took Abad nearly 20 years to get the courage to write this book about his father, his life and the circumstances of his murder by Colombian paramilitaries. The result is a cathartic and sentimental—but not clichéd—account of a man who fought against oppression, and social inequality and whose voice was shut down by six bullets in the head. The narration itself—which focuses more on the father’s activism and the father figure per se than on the man himself—was a process for the author; Abad goes beyond memory, opening up his own feelings and responses to his loss and depicts his father as the symbol of the ongoing fight against injustice, thus, illuminating and strengthening the Colombian memory.
Las Formas de la Pereza y Otros Ensayos (2007; t. The Forms of Laziness and Other Essays) is a book about the origin and manifestations of laziness. The author’s hypothesis is that laziness would not be a luxury but the original condition of human existence, and the starting point of all subsequent human creations.
An extensive bibliography about his writings has been prepared by Professor Augusto Escobar Mesa from the University of Antioquia
University of Antioquia
The University of Antioquia , also called UdeA, is a public, departmental, coeducational, research university based primarily in the city of Medellín, Antioquía, Colombia. It is the largest higher education institution by student population in the northwest of the country, and the second in...
, and the Université de Montréal
Université de Montréal
The Université de Montréal is a public francophone research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the École Polytechnique and HEC Montréal...
.
Reception
- 1980. Colombian National Short Story Prize for Piedras de Silencio
- 1996. National Creative Writing Scholarship; Colombian Ministry of Culture for Fragmentos de Amor Furtivo.
- 1998. Simón Bolívar National Prize in Journalism.
- 2000. 1st Casa de America Award for Innovative American Narrative for Basura.
- 2004. Best Spanish Language Book of the Year (People’s Republic of China) for Angosta.
- 2006. German Academic Exchange ServiceGerman Academic Exchange ServiceThe German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation....
(DAAD) fellowship. - 2007. National Book Award; Libros & Letras Latin American and Colombian Cultural Magazine for El Olvido que Seremos.
- 2007. Simón Bolívar National Prize in Journalism.
Published works
- Malos Pensamientos (1991)
- Asuntos de un Hidalgo Disoluto (1994; Eng. The Joy of Being Awake, 1996)
- Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes (1996; t: Cookbook for Sad Women)
- Fragmentos de Amor Furtivo (1998; t: Fragments of Furtive Love)
- Basura (2000; t: Garbage)
- Palabras Sueltas (2002; t: Loose Words)
- Oriente Empieza en El Cairo (2002)
- Angosta (2004)
- El Olvido que Seremos (2006; The Oblivion We Shall Be)
- Las Formas de la Pereza y Otros Ensayos (2007; t: The Forms of Laziness and Other Essays)
- El Amanecer de un Marido (2008; t: The Awakening of a Husband)
- Traiciones de la Memoria (2009; t: Treasons of Memory)
Translated Works
English:- 1996. The Joy of Being Awake (Asuntos de un Hidalgo Disoluto)
- 2010. Oblivion: A Memoir (El olvido que seremos)
Italian:
- 1997. Trattato di Culinaria per Donne Tristi (Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes).
- 2008. Scarti (Basura).
- 2009. L'oblio che saremo (El Olvido que Seremos).
German:
- 2001. Kulinarisches Traktat für traurige Frauen (Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes).
- 2009. Brief an einen Schatten: Eine Geschichte aus Kolumbien (El olvido que seremos).
Greek:
- 2000. Συvtα¡έs ¡ια απо¡оntευ έs ¡υvαίkεs (Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes)
Portuguese:
- 2001. Receitas de Amor para Mulheres Tristes (Tratado de Culinaria para Mujeres Tristes).
- 2001. Fragmentos de Amor Furtivo (Fragmentos de Amor Furtivo).
- 2009. Somos o Esquecimento que Seremos (El Olvido que Seremos).
Chinese:
- 2005. 深谷幽城 (Angosta) The four Chinese characters mean, respectively: deep, valley, faint or dim, and castle, so an attempt to a translation would be "The deep valley and the dim castle". Héctor Abad Faciolince's name is rendered in Chinese as 埃克托尔·阿瓦德·法西奥林塞.
Dutch:
- 2010. Het vergeten dat ons wacht (El Olvido que Seremos).