Acclaimed as one of the most important Latin American novels in recent decades, Artificial Respiration is a stunning introduction for English readers to the fiction of Ricardo Piglia. Published in Argentina in 1981, it was written at a time when thousands of Argentine citizens "disappeared" during the government’s attempt to create an authoritarian state. In part a reflection on one of the most repressive and tragic times in Argentine history, this is one of those rare works of fiction in which multiple philosophical, political, and narrative dimensions are all powerfully and equally matched. As a prize winning detective novel, Artificial Respiration reaches through many levels of mystery to explore the forces that have been at play in Argentina throughout its violent history. The narrator, a writer named Renzi, begins to look for an uncle who has vanished, a man he knows only through a web of contradictory family stories and an exchange of letters. Through these letters he learns about his uncle’s research into the life of Enrique Ossario, secretary to the 19th-century Argentine dictator Rosas and spy for the dictator’s enemy. As Renzi’s search leads further into his uncle’s work and to conversations with his literary and chess-playing friends, the reader is led by Piglia to consider the nature of Argentine identity, its literature and history, and its relation, for example, to Europe, exile, and democracy. Finally, and made most vividly appreciable by the retelling of a story in which Kafka meets Hitler, it is the encounter between literature and history that is explored.

Artificial Respiration (Latin America in Translation)

Literature & Fiction

Piglia, Ricardo

Contemporary

Duke University Press Books

The Absent City

Widely acclaimed throughout Latin America after its 1992 release in Argentina, The Absent City takes the form of a futuristic detective novel. In the end, however, it is a meditation on the nature of totalitarian regimes, on the transition to democracy after the end of such regimes, and on the power of language to create and define reality. Ricardo Piglia combines his trademark avant-garde aesthetics with astute cultural and political insights into Argentina’s history and contemporary condition in this conceptually daring and entertaining work. The novel follows Junior, a reporter for a daily Buenos Aires newspaper, as he attempts to locate a secret machine that contains the mind and the memory of a woman named Elena. While Elena produces stories that reflect on actual events in Argentina, the police are seeking her destruction because of the revelations of atrocities that she—the machine—is disseminating through texts and taped recordings. The book thus portrays the race to recover the history and memory of a city and a country where history has largely been obliterated by political repression. Its narratives—all part of a detective story, all part of something more—multiply as they intersect with each other, like the streets and avenues of Buenos Aires itself. The second of Piglia’s novels to be translated by Duke University Press—the first was Artifical Respiration—this book continues the author’s quest to portray the abuses and atrocities that characterize dictatorships as well as the difficulties associated with making the transition to democracy. Translated and with an introduction by Sergio Waisman, it includes a new afterword by the author.

Literary

stories, Argentina, tr Sergio Gabriel Waisman

Assumed Name (Discoveries)

Latin American Literary Review Press

Review\n“[A] posthumous autobiographical masterpiece…. [P]rofoundly moving. A meditation on both the accumulation and ephemerality of time, Piglia’s final work is a brilliant addition to world literature.” 
― Publishers Weekly, Starred Review\n“Filled with literary aperçus and fragments of history: an elegant, affecting close to a masterwork.” ― Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review\n“Much of the fascinating material is to be found in his brief appreciations and observations, such as notes on authors and his reading, but the life-story―of someone who has dedicated himself entirely to literature―also comes across, and it is thoroughly engaging, over all three volumes of this larger work…. An impressive self-accounting of a great reader and writer.” 
-- M. A. Orthofer ― The Complete Review\n“This is the third and final volume of a fascinating hybrid work…. [T]hese ‘Diaries’ could be described somewhat inadequately as a combination of autobiographical fiction, diaristic chronicle, literary and philosophical rumination, and record of ‘the times.’” 
-- John Wilson ― First Things\n“These notes on the end of his life are beautiful, and avoid the heart-wrenching, or the at times strained experience of reading about impending death, and cap what is an utterly remarkable work of literature spread out over an entire lifetime…. The diaries of Piglia do not require a thorough understanding of his oeuvre, or even the history of Latin American fiction, let alone anything so difficult as the ideas of Kant or Nietzsche mentioned. Instead, the diaries require an interest and love of reading, and how we read and write, and how language exists in art separate from society. In this way, his exploration of his life becomes an exploration of all the lives he may have lived, and how one reckons with the enigma of a life constructed through language.” 
―Teddy Burnette, Full Stop -- Teddy Burnette ― Full Stop\nSixty years in the making and the capstone of a monumental literary career, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life is the final volume of the autobiographical trilogy from the author who is considered Borges’ heir and the vanguard of the Post-Boom generation of Latin American literature. 
How could we define a perfect day? Maybe it would be better to say: how could I narrate a perfect day? 
Is that why I write a diary? To capture―or reread―one of those days of unexpected happiness? 
The final installment of Ricardo Piglia’s lifelong compilation of journals completes the seemingly impossible project of documenting the entire life of a writer. A Day in the Life picks up the thread of Piglia’s life in the 1980s until his death from ALS in 2017. Emilio Renzi, Piglia’s literary alter ego, navigates the tumultuous ups and downs of a post-Peronist Argentina filled with political unrest, economic instability, and a burgeoning literary scene ready to make its mark on the rest of the world and escape the shadows of legendary authors Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Arlt. 
Renzi’s peripatetic, drinking, philandering ways don’t abate as he grows older, and we’re exposed to the intrinsic insecurities that continually plague him even as fate tips in his favor and he goes on to win international literary prizes and becomes professor emeritus of Princeton University. His literary success is marred only by the disappointments and tragedies of his personal life as he deals with the death of friends and family, failed relationships, and the constant pecuniary struggles of a writer trying to live solely on his ability to produce art. The final sections of this ambitious project intimately trace the deterioration of Piglia’s body after his diagnosis: My right hand is heavy and uncooperative but I can still write. When I can no longer. . . . The crowning achievement of a prolific, internationally acclaimed author, this third volume cements Ricardo Piglia’s position as one of the most influential Latin American authors of the last century. 
Praise for The Di

The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life

United States

Restless Books

“Cognizant of his impending death, Piglia, the Argentine titan of letters who died of A.L.S. in January, prepared his 327 notebooks for publication in a trilogy…. Splendidly crafted and interspliced with essays and stories, this beguiling work is to a diary as Piglia is to “Emilio Renzi”: a lifelong alter ego, a highly self-conscious shadow volume that brings to bear all of Piglia’s prowess as it illuminates his process of critical reading and the inevitable tensions between art and life.” —Mara Faye Lethem, The New York Times Book Review A giant of contemporary Latin American literature, Argentine novelist Ricardo Piglia’s secret magnum opus was a compilation of 327 notebooks that he composed over nearly six decades, in which he imagined himself as his literary alter ego, Emilio Renzi. A world-weary detective, Renzi stars in many of his creator's works, much like Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman. But the Renzi of these diaries is something more complex—a multilayered reconstruction of the self that is teased out over intricate, illuminating pages. As Piglia/Renzi develops as a reader and writer, falls in love, and tussles with his tyrannical father, we get eye-opening perspectives on Latin America’s tumultuous twentieth century. Obsessed with literary giants—from Borges and Cortázar (both of whom he knew), to Kafka and Camus—The Diaries comprise a celebration of reading as a vital, existential activity. When Piglia learned he had a fatal illness in 2011, he raced to complete his mysterious masterwork as rumors about the book intensified among his many fans. First released in Spanish as a trilogy to tremendous applause, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi cements Piglia’s place in the global canon.

The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

The second installment of Argentine literary giant Ricardo Piglia’s acclaimed bibliophilic trilogy follows his alter ego, Emilio Renzi, as his literary career begins to take off in the tumultuous years 1968-1975—running a magazine, working as a publisher, and encountering the literary stars among whom he would soon take his place: Borges, Puig, Roa Bastos, Piñera.“One writes,” Ricardo Piglia asserts, only “in order to know literature.” Spanning the years 1968 to 1975, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years is a testament to Piglia’s intimate, lifelong love affair with the written word. This second installment of the Argentinian master’s diaries opens a window into a luminous literary community fertile with genius and ever-traipsing from bar to bar—as well as into a convulsing Argentina racked by the death of Perón, guerilla warfare, and a bloody military coup—and establishes itself as the definitive backbone of Piglia’s monumental career.

The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years

Review\n“An offbeat take on the campus novel, full of sex, intrigue, and marginalia.” ― Kirkus Reviews\n“With his trademark mixture of autobiography and fiction, reminiscent of Ben Lerner, Sheila Heti, and Rachel Cusk, Piglia explores themes similar to those of Don DeLillo’s Mao II (1991), regarding the connection between art and violence, in this thoughtful, slight, and mesmeric crime novel by a giant of innovative literature.” -- Alexander Moran ― Booklist\n“The late Ricardo Piglia is a legend in Argentina, but oft-overlooked in the US; his latest English translation is another mind-bending mix of autofiction and detective novel. It's got all the twists, turns, paranoia, tangents, and weirdness you'd expect if you've encountered his books like Target in the Night and Artificial Respiration ― an oddball crime novel that's part of a tradition spanning from G.K. Chesterton to True Detective.” -- Justin Souther ― Buzzfeed News\n“Deceptively casual, and considerably bigger in sum than its pieces might suggest… Ida's path, and Renzi's, and Munk's prove surprisingly (and rather disturbingly) relevant in the present-day United States. A fine and interesting work.” -- M. A. Orthofer ― The Complete Review\nEmilio Renzi, literary alter ego of legendary Argentine author Ricardo Piglia, returns in The Way Out, an academic thriller that relentlessly questions the lengths we go to hide our own truths and to uncover the secrets of others. 
In the mid 1990s Emilio Renzi leaves behind his unstable life in Argentina to take a visiting position at a prestigious university in New Jersey. Settling in for a semester of academic quietude and wintry isolation, he is surprised to be swept up in a secret romance with his colleague, the brilliant and enigmatic Ida Brown. But their clandestine relationship comes to an abrupt end when Ida is discovered in her car, killed in what appears to be a tragic accident. Discontented with the police’s lackluster inquiries, and troubled by the inexplicable burn found on her hand, Renzi begins his own investigation. 
Renzi's suspicions are piqued as details emerge about a bizarre string of attacks, apparently targeting scientists and researchers. But after a radical manifesto appears in the press threatening continued violence, the killer's identity is suddenly revealed. As he delves deeper into Ida Brown’s past, Renzi discovers a link between her and the terrorist that sets him on a path of no return: he must discover once and for all whether her death was part of a larger pattern and, if so, whether she was a victim or accomplice. Renzi’s quest for truth reveals not only the secrets of his former lover, but also reveals a darker side of humanity that will force him to confront the systems and culture that could produce such a misguided killer. 
A bracing critique of American culture and an exploration of privacy and politics in an era of rapid technological advancement, Piglia’s signature blend of autobiography and fiction is in full effect in this intriguing twist on the detective novel.

The Way Out

Based on original reports and witness statements, Money to Burn tells the story of a gang of bandits who, fancying themselves as urban guerrillas, raided a bank in downtown Buenos Aires. They escaped with millions in cash but six weeks later found their hideout surrounded by three hundred military police, journalists and TV cameras. The subsequent siege and its shocking outcome have become a Latin American legend.

Money to Burn

Granta Books

Love and betrayal complicate a robbery gone wrong in this edgy true-crime novel based on a 1965 Argentine bank robbery. There's the drama of the botched raid itself, followed by a blowout afterparty, an attempted double-crossing of the corrupt local authorities, and a final shootout where, as a last act of rebellion, the robbers burn all the loot. This gritty tale has been adapted for a major motion picture by renowned Argentine director Marcelo Pinyero.

Granta UK

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Books by Piglia, Ricardo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Piglia, Ricardo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Artificial Respiration (Latin America in Translation)

The Absent City

The Absent City

Assumed Name (Discoveries)

The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life

The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years

The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years

The Way Out

Money to Burn

Money to Burn