First published in 1950, this is a brilliant novel by one of the greats of Latin American literature

“Onetti's novels ar ethe corner stones of our modernity.”—Carlos Fuentes

“The Graham Greene of Uruguay...foreshadowing the work of Beckett and Camus.”—Sunday Telegraph

“When you see that someone can write so well, it makes you want to believe that things can't be so bad in this world.”—Mario Vargas Llosa

“Latin American literature has few secrets to divulge to the English-speaking world; but one of them is the Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti.”—The Guardian (UK)

In A Brief Life, Juan Carlos Onetti's protagonist, Brausen, is caring for his wife after a long illness. To compensate for the physical void which temporarily stalls their caresses, Brausen eavesdrops on the conversation of his neighbors, a husband and wife, imagining their gestures and their expressions.

But he not only wishes to imagine himself as someone else, he also seeks release from the world he knows. He leads many lives, some real and some fantastic, in order to experience a moment of psychic weightlessness—a “brief life.”

Juan Carlos Onetti is acknowledged as one of the great Latin American writers of the twentieth century. His best-known work is The Shipyard. He died in 1994.

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La vida breve is the novel that introduces Santa Maria, the mythical land in Onettian narrative. Brausen's wife was crippled after a complicated surgery. To make up for the void left by her forgotten caresses, he creates stories. He dreams up Santa Maria and the life of Doctor Diaz Grey. He listens to a conversation between a man and a woman, happening on the other side of a wall, he imagines their gestures, their feelings. He wants to break the barriers of imagination, he wants to become another. Description in Spanish: La vida breve es la novela inaugural de Santa Maria, el territorio mitico de la narrativa onettiana. Su protagonista, Brausen, escucha a traves de una pared una conversacion entre un hombre y una mujer. Imagina sus gestos, sus sentimientos. Brausen vive con su mujer, que una operacion complicada dejo mutilada, y para compensar este vacio fisico que detendra sus caricias, el imagina historias: la de Santa Maria, y la de un medico llamado Diaz Grey. Pero no solo desea imaginar que es otro, tambien quiere serlo. ''Las novelas y cuentos de Onetti son las piedras de fundacion de nuestra modernidad. A todos sus descendientes nos dio una leccion de inteligencia narrativa, de construccion sabia, de inmenso amor a la imaginacion literaria.'' CARLOS FUENTES...