“Varamo, like all the Aira books in translation, is charming and infuriating, built of plain prose that blooms without warning into carbuncular visions;”
— Ben Ratliff, The New York Times on César Aira's Varamo
“Varamo, like all the Aira books in translation, is charming and infuriating, built of plain prose that blooms without warning into carbuncular visions;”
— Ben Ratliff, The New York Times on César Aira's Varamo
Contemporary Argentine author
César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires (about Copi and Rimbaud) and at the University of Rosario (Constructivism and Mallarmé), and has translated and edited books from France, England, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in Argentina, and certainly one of the most talked about in Latin America, Aira has published more than eighty books to date in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Spain, which have been translated for France, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Russia, and now the United States. One novel, La prueba, has been made into a feature film, and How I Became a Nun was chosen as one of Argentina’s ten best books. Besides essays and novels Aira writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In 1996 he received a Guggenheim scholarship, and in 2002 he was short listed for the Rómulo Gallegos prize.
Varamo
The Seamstress and the Wind
The Literary Conference
Ghosts
How I Became A Nun
An Episode In The Life Of A Landscape Painter
“The book teems with delightful, off-the-cuff metaphysical speculation.”
— Giles harvey, The New Yorker on César Aira's Varamo
“The brilliance lies in the way it treads this tightrope without ever revealing the central mystery, and without relaxing the tension.”
— The Nation on César Aira's Varamo
“In plain but meandering prose, Aira winds his off-kilter narrative into a metafictional loop in which Varamo, who has never written before, accidentally crafts a literary masterpiece.”
— Critical Mob on César Aira's Varamo
“Aira’s humorous writing style is absurd yet always ironic, simple in logic yet increasingly mystifying in message.”
— The Harvard Crimson on César Aira's Varamo
“...a sprint through multiple bizarre situations, a few philosophical digressions, a charming light-heartedness, and exquisite sentences.”
— The Rumpus on César Aira's Varamo
“The eccentricity of plot here is its own pleasure, but the slow, carefully written digressions it enfolds are what make the work such extravagant fun.”
— The Coffin Factory on César Aira's Varamo
“ An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter’s mere 87 pages are so multi-faceted and transporting and I get so absorbed that upon finishing I don’t remember anything. Like having a complex cinematic dream that dissipates upon awakening.”
— Patti Smith, The New York Times Book Review on César Aira's An Episode In The Life Of A Landscape Painter
“Aira is a manifestly gifted writer who may find writing all too easy a job.”
— Quarterly Conversation on César Aira's Varamo
“Once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop.”
— Roberto Bolaño on César Aira
“If there is one contemporary writer who defies classification, it is César Aira.”
— Roberto Bolaño on César Aira
