Sergio Pitol

Sergio Pitol Demeneghi (born March 18, 1933 in Puebla , † April 12, 2018 in Xalapa , Mexico ) was a Mexican literary scholar , writer , translator and diplomat .

Life

Sergio Pitol's childhood was marred by personal tragedy and illness. At just four years old, Pitol lost his parents. His father died of meningitis and his mother drowned. A short time later his sister died, he fell ill with malaria and was confined to bed for a long time. After the death of his parents, he and his three-year-old brother Angel were raised by his maternal grandparents, Catalina Bouganza de Deméneghi and Agustín Deméneghi, in the coastal state of Veracruz. Through his grandmother, Pitol discovered his great love for literature: Jules Verne , Charles Dickens , Robert Louis Stevenson and many others. “When I got sick, my grandma gave me some Jules Verne books. I was fascinated. I held on to life because of Verne's wonderful adventures. [...] Since I was a child, literature and theater have always been my refuge, ”explained Pitol. “My grandmother read all day, her favorite author was Tolstoy . My illness led me to read too. I started with Verne , Stevenson and Dickens ; when I was twelve I had read "War and Peace" by Tolstoy . At sixteen or seventeen I was familiar with Proust , Faulkner , Thomas Mann and Virginia Woolf , I knew Kafka , Neruda and Borges , contemporary Mexican poetry and the Spanish generation of 1927, as well as classical Spanish literature . "

After his recovery, he devoted his life to traveling and writing. In 1950 Pitol went to Mexico City to study law , philosophy and literature at the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM) there. After completing his studies, he initially taught as a literature professor at UNAM, the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa and at the University of Bristol .

In 1960 he joined the Foreign Service of Mexico and was cultural attaché in Italy , what was then Yugoslavia , Poland , France , the People's Republic of China , what was then the Soviet Union , Czechoslovakia , Hungary and Spain . From 1982 to 1987 he was the Mexican ambassador to Czechoslovakia. In his book The Art of Flight , Pitol et al. a. back to his countless trips to major European cities.

Initially influenced by Latin American fantasy, Pitol expanded his perspective beyond traditional Mexican topics in the course of his literary work and under the influence of Russian literature in particular. As a novelist and essayist, he was counted among the most respected writers in Latin America. Pitol spoke seven languages. Through his translations he made a. a. Anton Chekhov , Nikolai Gogol , Witold Gombrowicz , Henry James , Joseph Conrad and Jane Austen are known in Mexico.

Since 1993 Pitol lived in Xalapa , the capital of the Mexican state Veracruz . He fell ill with progressive aphasia . In the end he could hardly speak or move and withdrew more and more from public life. After a legal dispute between friends and relatives about his care, he last lived under state tutelage.

honors and awards

Pitol has received numerous awards, including the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in 1998 and the Cervantes Prize in 2005 .

Works in German translation

• Married life . Roman, with an afterword by Antonio Tabucchi . Wagenbach, Berlin 2002, TB 2005, ISBN 3-8031-2513-8 .
• Parade of love . Novel. Wagenbach, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-8031-3180-4 .
• The trip - a visit to Russia and its literature . Wagenbach, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-8031-3611-3 .
• Mephisto waltz . Stories. Wagenbach, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-8031-1230-3 .
• The divine snipe . Novel. Wagenbach, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8031-3206-1 .
• The art of escape . Translation by Ulrich Kunzmann. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-8822-1882-7 .
• Buried thrushes. The most beautiful stories . From the Mexican Spanish by Angelica Amar. Wagenbach, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8031-3249-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Sergio Pitol in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Sergio Pitol in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
• Literature by and about Sergio Pitol in the catalog of the library of the Instituto Cervantes in Germany

supporting documents

1. ↑ Mexican author Sergio Pitol died at 85. Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 13, 2018, archived from the original on June 16, 2018 .  ++
   Fabiola Palapa Quijas, Eirinet Gómez: Pitol y el llamado del viaje. In: La Jornada. April 12, 2018, Retrieved April 13, 2018 (Spanish). 
2. ↑ Berenice Bautista, Peter Orsi: Renowned Mexican writer Sergio Pitol dies at 85. In: AP article in The Washington Post . April 12, 2018, accessed April 14, 2018 . George Henson: Sergio Pitol: A Literary Ambassador from Mexico to the World. In: Latin American Literature Today. January 30, 2018, accessed April 14, 2018 . Globetrotter of literature. Mexican author Sergio Pitol died at 85. Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 13, 2018, archived from the original on April 14, 2018 . 
    
    
3. ↑ ^{a b} Sense of the grotesque in moments of great tragedy. Awarding of the 2005 Cervantes Prize to Sergio Pitol , Deutschlandfunk Kultur, April 21, 2006.
4. ^ Juan Carlos Delgado: Muere el escritor mexicano Sergio Pitol. In: abc.es . April 13, 2018, Retrieved April 13, 2018 (Spanish). 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Ed. By Verity Smith. 1997, p. 1211
6. ↑ Deutschlandfunk Kultur October 29, 2007: Reflections of a culture-hungry globetrotter
7. ↑ Sergio Pitol died. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . April 12, 2018, accessed April 13, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Globetrotter of literature. Mexican author Sergio Pitol died at the age of 85 ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Badische Zeitung of April 13, 2018.