Jaime Sáenz

Jaime Sáenz (* 1921 in La Paz , Bolivia ; † 1986 ibid.) Was a Bolivian writer, poet and playwright.

Life

Sáenz is counted among the most important writers in Hispanic America of the 20th century. His style is assigned to surrealism . Since 1970 he received a professorship for Bolivian literature at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés de La Paz , where he opened a literary workshop. Although Saenz never sought public recognition for himself, the Bolivian state provided him with a lifetime apartment in recognition of his literary work. For years he only slept there during the day because he found the daylight threatening for himself, and was only active at night. For years, Sáenz fought against his alcohol addiction , which is the subject of La noche . In 1980 he survived a delirium tremens . In 1986 he relapsed and died of renewed delirium.

subjects

Central themes of his poetry are cold, distance, night, body and death. So are ghosts and the dead, the most commonly used characters in his works. Nonetheless, the bizarre and bizarre types refer to life in La Paz and its impoverished middle class and often to their mythicism .

“It is as if the author were going into the field of linguistic psychology in the deeper sense. His comical-tragic characters express what is commonly referred to as ulterior motives without further ado "

- Angela Delissen, playwright

Works

• El escalpelo (1955)
• Muerte por el tacto (1957)
• Aniversario de una visión (1960)
• Visitante profundo (1964)
• El fr´ío (1967)
• Recorrer esta distancia (1973)
• Bruckner (1978)
• Las tinieblas (1978)
• Felipe Delgado (1979), novel
• Imágenes paceñas (1979)
• Al pasar un cometa (1982)
• La noche (1984)
• Los cuartos (1985)
• El Señor Balboa (1985)
• Santiago de Machaca (1985)
• Vidas y Muertes (1986)
• La piedra imán (1989)
• Los papeles de Narciso Lima Achá (1991)
• Obras inéditas (1996)
• Obra dramatica (2005)

Works in German translation

Helga Castellanos and Christa Fabry de Orias translated three stories and a prose poem from Bolivian Spanish into German:

• The rooms . Narrative. Unrast, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-89771-643-7 .
• The Señor Balboa . Narrative. Unrast, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-89771-645-3 .
• Santiago de Machaca . Narrative. Unrast, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-646-1 .
• The night - walking through the distance . Prose poem. Unrast, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-89771-647-X .

Also:

• Desde el profundo de la noche - From the depths of the night . Prose poem. Bilingual edition, selection and translation by Helga Castellanos. Teamart-Verlag, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-908126-43-0 . (Contains: El frío - the cold, Visitante profundo - unfathomable visitor, Aniversario de una visión - anniversary of a vision).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Author information from Unrast-Verlag , Münster, last accessed on July 21, 2019.
2. ↑ Loretta's reading lamp on FSK , Hamburg, last accessed on July 21, 2019.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jaime Sáenz in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
• Literature by and about Jaime Sáenz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage about Jaime Saenz
• "Muchas veces también el ángel sabe mentir": lo inconocido de Jaime Sáenz, Guillermo Delgado P.