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Augusto Monterroso

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Author

The Resume

    (December 21, 1921-February 7, 2003)
    Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras
    One of the central figures of the Latin American 'Boom' generation
    Best known for writing the shortest story, which goes like this: 'When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.'
    Founded the newspaper El Espectador
    Served as Guatemalan consul to Bolivia (1953-1954)
    Wrote 'The Eclipse' (1958), 'Complete Works and Other Stories' (1959), 'The Black Sheep and Other Fables' (1969), 'Perpetual Movement' (1972), 'All the Rest is Silence' (1978), 'Journey to the Center of the Fable' (1981), 'The Magic Word' (1983), 'The Letter E: Fragments of a Diary' (1987), 'The Cow' (1999), and 'Birds of Latin America' (2002)
    Awarded Xavier Villaurrutia Award (1975), Juan Rulfo Award (1996), Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature (1997), and Prince of Asturias Award in Literature (2000)
    Professor of literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico
    Died of heart failure in Mexico City

Why he might be annoying:

    He resembled Roger Garaudy.
    He left school at the age of 11 and was subsequently homeschooled before learning on his own.
    His works can be rather hard to classify because they're very short by short story standards and vague on whether it's a real story or just a fable.
    Because he mainly published short stories, his only novel, 'The Rest is Silence,' is somewhat unconventional in its use of various apocryphal short texts rather than the traditional novel to 'sketch' the main character's biography.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He taught himself to read English- and Spanish-language classics.
    He innovated and mastered the short story format, maintaining its significance in literature through the careful use of brevity and irony.
    He was exiled from Guatemala for oppossing dictator Jorge Ubico. (1944-1946)
    He worked extensively with fellow Latin American writers, even writing 'Birds of Latin America' as a tribute to his friendship with them.
    Carlos Fuentes called him 'one of the cleanest, most intelligent, transparent and smiling authors in the Spanish language'.

Credit: Big Lenny


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 19 Votes: 57.89% Annoying