2024-02-11 03:34:16
In commemoration of 40th anniversary of the death of Julio Cortázar, and to celebrate the 110 years of his birththis Monday the literary tour will take place In the footsteps of Cortazara pedestrian tour of Buenos Aires that will depart at 4:30 p.m. from the Teatro Colón and will cover 10 key points of the city linked to the author of “Hopscotch”, such as Diagonal Norte, Plaza de Mayo, the Luna Park Stadium and Florida Street.
Buenos Aires is a literary city par excellence and is not left out of Cortázar’s narrative work. The Argentine writer was born in Brussels in 1914 and died on February 12, 1984 in Paris.
Cortázar’s life in Buenos Aires can be divided into several stages. Since his arrival in the city in 1918 at the age of four, he lived in Banfield until 1932, when he moved to Villa del Parque. During this time, he spent most of his days in the Federal Capital. In 1937 he moved to Bolívar and then to Chivilcoy to teach, returning to Buenos Aires on weekends. In 1944 he began teaching in Mendoza, before returning to Buenos Aires and then moving to Paris in 1951. He made several visits to Buenos Aires, both with his wife and alone, at different stages of his life.
Forty years after her death, a tribute to her life and her literary legacy is presented, organized by the journalist and tourist guide Mariana Iglesias. The walk will depart from Colón at Cerrito 628 and will conclude at the London City Confectionery. The selected points have a special meaning, since they are an important part of the writer’s life and work in Buenos Aires. From his arrival in Buenos Aires in 1918, when he was four years old, until his last visits as an established writer, Cortázar was deeply linked to the city and its neighborhoods.
Iglesias, who dedicated his career to the dissemination of the cultural and tourist heritage of Buenos Aires, explains that for Cortázar “Buenos Aires is one of the great protagonists of his life and his work.” One of the stops is Agronomy: In 1931, Cortázar and his family moved to the Artigas building 3246. Artigas Street is on the corner of Espinosa, which since 1994 in that section has been called Julio Cortázar. There are several hopscotches there that the neighbors usually paint, as well as a bar that bears precisely that name.
Another of the cronopio neighborhoods par excellence is Palermo, where the former Serrano square is today called Julio Cortázar. Jorge Luis Borges also lived on Serrano Street, “turning that corner into a literary space par excellence in the city,” explains the guide. In the same area, “the family on Humboldt Street” is the protagonist of several texts by Stories of Cronopios and Famas such as the stories “Simulacros” or “Postals and Telecommunications”.
Another important space is the central square of the Mariano Moreno National Library which is called Hopscotch and is a space open to playing, reading, drawing and exchange from reader to reader. “Crossing the plaza and the Library building we find a sculpture of Cortazar placed on the centenary of his birth, at the initiative of the singer and personal friend of Julio, Susana Rinaldi,” explains Iglesias.
The author of “Bestiario” He studied at the Escuela Normal Superior N2 Mariano Acosta at 277 Urquiza Street. at Once between 1928 and 1932. “Entering the school, climbing the steps and seeing that box of yellow shoes in front of you as the story ‘The Night School’ is told is a strong experience that allows us to imagine Julio’s youthful years in the city,” says the guide.
In the early 1940s, the Buenos Aires music scene was complex but broad, and Cortazar, a declared music lover. The teacher’s presentation Arturo Toscanini at the Teatro Colón was an unavoidable event for a spirit like that of the writer. Iglesias says: “During the performance, the fervor of the public to greet the maestro’s performance disturbed and frightened him in such a way that, as soon as the concert was over, he went to his house and, in a sit-down, rehearsed the first lines of the unforgettable story ‘The Ménads'”.
Corrientes is also a cluster of Cortazarian spaces but Luna Park It is the place where he spent long hours as a spectator of the boxing fights of the 1940s. In 1973, during his visit to Buenos Aires, he was invited to chronicle a fight, which was published in the magazine The graphic.
Since 1915 the passage of the Güemes Gallery connects the pedestrian Florida with San Martín Street, however, for the protagonist of the story “The Other Heaven” crossing the gallery means connecting directly with another space and another time: the Vivianne Gallery in Paris at the end of the 19th century. XIX. “This intersection is interesting because the French writer Antoine Saint de Exupery (author of The little Prince) He lived in one of the rented apartments at the Güemes Gallery between 1929 and 1931. In Paris, both writers were also neighbors, although they didn’t know it… or did they?” Iglesias asks.
Also the Plaza de Mayo is the protagonist of several texts. In The exam, a novel written in 1950 and published in 1986, describes a ghostly atmosphere and the wanderings of several students on their way to take an exam, while other people worship a strange object in the center of the square. When Buenos Aires dawns with mist and you are walking through the area, it is not strange to feel that we are living in a novel.
Iglesias explains that “the confectionery London City It is the setting for the beginning of the novel. The awards (1960) but it is also a direct window to know the pulse of Avenida de Mayo.” Currently this iconic bar pays tribute to the author through a permanent display of photos, books and other objects.
Important for literary memory is Cortazar’s last trip to Buenos Aires. He did so after an absence of a decade, shortly before he died. He arrived at the Ezeiza airport on Wednesday, November 30, 1983, practically without attracting attention. His idea was to say goodbye to his mother, María Herminia Descotte.
Cortázar’s first full day in the city, Thursday, was spent in the company of his friend Héctor Yánover at the Norte bookstore located at Las Heras 2225. Then he had the opportunity to meet up with photographer Sara Facio on the corner of Patio Bullrich . On December 4, Cortazar enjoyed a screening in the Petit Premier cinema halllocated on Corrientes Avenue at 1565, where you could see There will be no more sorrow or forgetfulness, a film by Héctor Olivera based on the novel by his friend Osvaldo Soriano. There was no shortage of walks through the emblematic places of the city, from the Ouro Preto coffee to an Open Theater performance. On the 5th he went to meeting of Alberto Mario Perrone, who had previously interviewed him and had become his long-distance friend. Together they walked through the city, even visiting La Boca, where photographer Mario Paganetti captured the author’s last moments in Buenos Aires.
On December 6, before saying goodbye to Buenos Aires, Cortázar was in the Los Inmortales pizzeria, located at Marcelo T. de Alvear at 1200. It left back to Paris from the Ezeiza airport on December 7. Two months later, she died in the French capital.