Sábato Expires Just Before Reaching One Hundred Years of Age

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Light at the End of The Tunnel

Over a week-end full of exciting global events, such as the magnificent royal wedding between British Prince William and Katherine of Middletown, now Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, followed by the beatification of Pope John Paul II, and the killing of mastermind terrorist Usama bin Laden, the Latin American literature lost one of his greatest contemporary writers, Argentinian novelist Ernesto Sábato, the author of El Túnel, a novel considered by international critics as one of the greatest masterpiece of contemporary Latin American literature, and as a unique book of universal creative value in gender, content, and style.

The story of painter Juan Pablo Castel and María Iribarne starts with the connection they made through a small window in one of the painters’ paints, which remains unperceivable to others during an artwork exhibition, except for her. Juan Pablo Castel, the starring and narrator of The Tunnel suggests softly that there is a interior tunnel in his life, a psychological and somber one where internal passions confront what he sees as life hypocrisy on human relations based only on personal interests as he seeks himself.  Indeed, this entire perception goes far beyond Balzac’s social event in life or Dostoievski’s romanticist psychological analysis of Raskolnikov personality and feelings or Agatha Christie’s thrilling dramas.

In real life, Sábato is greatly afflicted by the turbulence derived from the atomic bombs blast in Japan and his scientific research as a physicist, which he abandons after attaining a PhD in Physics in Argentina and post-doctoral research work in France.

The Tunnel is one of the preferred readings for young Latin American literature students, and in fact a book that is attractive to the entire Spanish-American nation, and a masterpiece of grace and universal magnitude.  This was a novel that I read several times and on which I had a comprehensive literary analysis.

Sábato was greatly involved with human rights in particular in Argentina, his country of birth. Sábato’s gender had influenced several contemporary young generations of writers all around the world, but most significantly in South America.

Sábato’s works involve:

Novels

▪   1948: El túnel (Translated by Harriet de Onis in 1950 as The Outsider and again by Margaret Sayers Peden in 1988 as The Tunnel.)

▪   1961: Sobre héroes y tumbas (Translated by Helen R. Lane in 1981 as On Heroes and Tombs.)

▪   1974: Abaddón el exterminador (Translated by Andrew Hurley in 1991 as The Angel of Darkness.)

Essays

▪   1945: Uno y el Universo (One and the Universe)

▪   1951: Hombres y engranajes (Men and Mechanisms)

▪   1953: Heterodoxia (Heterodoxy)

▪   1956: El caso Sabato. Torturas y libertad de prensa. Carta abierta al General Aramburu (The Sabato Case. Tortures and Liberty of Press. Open Letter to General Aramburu)

▪   1956: El otro rostro del peronismo (The Other Face of Peronism)

▪   1963: El escritor y sus fantasmas (Translated by Asa Zatz in 1990 as The Writer in the Catastrophe of our Time.)

▪   1963: Tango, discusión y clave (Tango: Discussion and Key)

▪   1967: Significado de Pedro Henríquez Ureña (Significance of Pedro Henríquez Ureña)

▪   1968: Tres aproximaciones a la literatura de nuestro tiempo: Robbe-Grillet, Borges, Sartre (Three Approximations to the Literature of our Time: Robbe-Grillet, Borges, Sartre)

▪   1973: La cultura en la encrucijada nacional (Culture in the National Crossroads)

▪   1976: Diálogos con Jorge Luis Borges (Dialogues with Jorge Luis Borges) (Edited by Orlando Barone.)

▪   1979: Apologías y rechazos (Apologies and Rebuttals)

▪   1979: Los libros y su misión en la liberación e integración de la América Latina (Books and their Mission in the Liberation and Integration of Latin America)

▪   1988: Entre la letra y la sangre. Conversaciones con Carlos Catania (Between Letter and Blood. Conversations with Carlos Catania)

▪   1998: Antes del fin (Before the End)

▪   2000: La resistencia (The Resistance)

▪   2004: España en los diarios de mi vejez (Spain in the Diaries of my Old Age)

Other Works

▪   1964: Itinerario (Itinerary)

▪   1966: Romance de la muerte de Juan Lavalle. Cantar de Gesta (Romance of Juan Lavalle's Death. Cantar de gesta)

1984: Nunca más. Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la desaparición de personas (Never Again. Report from the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons)

Rescuing my Early Work (I):

My Mini Short Stories

Either in the last quarter of 1980 in my high-school at Fundación Humboldt cultural board (most likely) or at Universidad del Norte between 1983 and 1986 in my Literarias board, I should have published a set of mini short stories, i.e., really tiny short stories. Up until either time, I had not written any work in such a gender. But the motivation arose when a national contest was opened in Colombia. Although, I believe most likely I did not ever participated in any of those literary contests, I actually posted my short stories my school literary board. At Uninorte, this was one of two weekly boards. The other one was a technical board on systems engineering and computer science by the name of NotiSistemas.

After rereading my short stories, I believe that they have great literary value. It also reminds me of my reading of the time García Márquez, Cortázar, Hesse, Kipling, and Balzac, among others, which probably influenced these stories. Although, there is little or no cursing at all in any of my writings, the topics reflect the great influence of the Latin American boom writers on contemporary novice or aspiring writers at that time.

Poetry Straight From My Heart

Introducing Alma Mater I

Writing Alma Mater I has been a great experience. Compiling the poems that relate the success and difficulties of 30 years of university life is an exciting achievement. I would like to share some of my poems in each language they are writing in, and recommend for readers to purchase my book from Xlibris.

POETRY IN SPANISH

Francia o el Amor

¨¡La sombra! ¡Los recuerdos! La luna no vertía.

Allí ni un solo rayo...Temblabas y eras mía.¨

José Asunción Silva

Francia tiene cabellos de oro y ojos de cristal

me ama desde la infancia cuando me lo decía

sin temor a olvidar un día el juramento sacro

que me hizo de niña a la orilla del río y del mar

buscando traerme años más tarde la felicidad

callando enormemente su silencio, su tristeza o su alegría.

Y es oscura melancolía de otoño febril que deviene

primavera augusta, pasión satisfecha o

acaso deseo mío por tocar su dorado cuerpo

o por acariciar sus rubios cabellos de seda.

Pero Francia tiene más allá del olvido

la intención preconcebida de amarme a escondidas

y a hurtadillas, después del último ocaso

mirarme con sus ojos de regazo e inspirarme

aquellos sentimientos pueriles del juramento

marchito como la flor que aún conserva amarilla

en su libro de poemas de amor juvenil.

Cuerpo Magnífico

Perfume sensual, senos de copa levantados a besos
caricias tiernas con tus manos de vainilla y seda
se van llevando el pensamiento inusitado
a la laguna de los recuerdos de la infancia.

Siluetas desnudas, torsos descubiertos al latido
van desgajando las flores de un ramo furtivo
van deshojando el pensamiento del árbol crecido
corre el viento como en mansión de tesoro escondido.

Pies descalsos, desnudos, y sensuales como tu aliento

que bellos aman la unidad y siembran huellas
arenas que ruedan y marcan el tiempo.

Piernas forjadas y perfectas sostienen tu cuerpo
columnas antiguas de mármol y de oro
de planta robusta y fértil cuyo tallo no tuerce.

Insomnio Vespertino

Plácido amor, rosas decoradas con lazos de pasión

árbol crecido y valiente mirándome alegre
redoblar de tambores en la lontananza
todo visto, mezclado, y sentido al unísono.

Cómo arrancaste de mí el sentimiento
que se fue sin adioses ni dolor
se quedó sólo el recuerdo inédito
de un ensueño que nunca duró.

Insomnio vespertino, somnolencia matutina
despiertan el lamento por el tiempo perdido
abatidos por otros sueños mejor pasados, escondidos.

Siento tus caricias apasionadas en otras
amo el silencio, la pasión nocturna y bohemia
me siento hombre libre, humano, y ganador.

POETRY IN ENGLISH

The Perfectionist

(Perfection)

I

Lines, silhouettes, and conic nudity…
they join together, and blend

the perfect being

compact bust, sculptural torso

sweet smell,

smooth curves,

all append

and reflect the beauty

in the breathing of
the angelical aroma

of the mystic coffee

that yields the scent

enticing the sweet passion

playing with a small paper vessel
floating on transparent waters

anywhere…

and they came closer

to thank me for their friend

and it all seemed a chess play

to utter the word

that would bring us together.

II

They were crème de la crème

fused juices, soft lips,

sensual curves, spicy taste,
mixing fragrances

with their bodies’ tender scents

the busts all teased

surrounded with luster...

unique lovely presence.

For the creative artist,

having nothing brings

happiness,

mystic flavor,
delicious celestial pleasures,
emptiness

divine carmine that blends

the coffee ground with

pure illusionist temptation!

III

The lovely voices sound inside

as the song of truthful love

aligns the awaken souls both

the feeling of the unified heart.

The painter ballyhoos his art

detained in time is the age

that turned around the page

aligning each delicate body part.

The floor moved, piece by piece, away

the parlor is turned round around

the art fades, skepticism is my way…

The coffee aroma has waken me up

spreading delicious flavor in my room

joyful morning, the labyrinth is my map.

My Summer Song

Inspired by the beautiful morning, I look for you in my realm

I find you, your hands, tender, warm loving me

I keep seeking you and extend the rhythm of our souls

to a flamboyant memoir of heat that arises from the sun.

I seek your love, and find just your silhouette attached to me

inspiring verses of desire, outline of passion and innocence

I look for you in the garden, under the shadow of the trees

I find the fresh clear water of the ponds reflecting you.

I wake up from my solitude to sense your hands, your lips,

steady eye contemplating your majestic nude

and I come to consciousness in the summer heat.

The red sparkles the sandy hammock and you are mine

the birds have sung other songs different from mine

they fly away with the swallows as you kiss me again.

POETRY IN FRENCH

Voyage de Rêves

La Ville Lumière brille avec la nouvelle pensée
qui évoque la renaissance de l’amour à la connaissance
racontant des histoires héroïques jamais oubliées
et toujours racontées aux petits enfants qui ne l’oublierons jamais
les jeunes illustres qui ont eu l’occasion de traverser l’Atlantique
pour connaître la nouvelle terre où elle fleurit aussi la liberté
où l’égalité n’as pas de couleurs ou différences de croyances
où la fraternité se montre comme une réalité quotidienne:
C’était le rêve de la Nouvelle France, c’est le rêve de l’Amérique.

La Femme Qui Revient

Je te vus partir une soirée sombre
qui s’était étendue sous le ciel rempli d’azur
où il n’y avait pas d’objets interdits
mais par contre où l’on y trouvait l’amour partout.
La soirée maigrit avec des collages aux couleurs bleues
tandis qu’elle noircit aussi comme si c’était la fin du monde
et la matinée se réveilla muette et coquette.

Mémoires d’autrefois nourrissent ma solitude
se dépêchant à cause de ton habitude silencieuse
ton mystère inconnu sous la raison incertaine
mémoires qui me mènent vers ta silhouette nue
presque morbide, mais remplie d’une finesse unique
ta tendresse féminine qui me remporte ta candeur
fleur d’avril qui fleurit aussitôt et s’ouvre fragile.
Et en fin, je te trouve belle si belle,
plus belle qu’aucune femme jamais retrouvée.

Mémoire Facile de l’Amour Difficile

On savait qu’ils étaient des amants
des amants qui s’aimaient sans compromis
et sans aucune synergie
mais leur amour était du véritable sentiment
qui s’envolait leurs âmes bénies
à chaque instant, à chaque moment
un amour qui dérangeait tout ce qui vivait dedans
le mystère de vrais amants
qui s’aimaient sans s’en souvenir de rien
sans donner des réponses aux demandes
des explications routinières pour l’angoisse visible.
Et ils s’étaient rencontrés en Égypte
pour la première fois depuis longtemps
se cachant dans les passages secrets
avec des portes contiguës et entrouvertes
et ils sont allés en Argentine
et c’est à Buenos Aires
où ils eurent à nouveau leur premier rêve d’amour
sur le même lit blanc nuancé par le rouge
et ils s’étaient aimés partout, à Paris et à Madrid
dans des hôtels de luxe, dans les cafés du romance
où ils avaient raconté d’autres histoires créées par eux-mêmes
et leur lune de miel s’illumine aux Champs-Élysées
où, aujourd’hui, ils courent avec leurs rêves accomplis.http://www.AlmaMaterI.org

Announcing my First Poetry Book

Alma Mater I

Poetry in Spanish, English, and French

Alma Mater I (Poetry in Three Languages) encompasses a series of poems written from 1980 through 2010, chronologically in Spanish, English, and French. Some poems written from 1980 and until 1989, which survived my immigration to the United States, appear in the book. These poems were part of a collection that I had intended to publish in a small book of about 30 poems, which I had entitled Poemas de Perfección y Encanto (Poems of Perfection and Enchantment). I had given a copy of my collection to Diario del Caribe in Barranquilla, Colombia, which published some of these poems in a literary page called La Esquina, named after the literary group lead by Gilberto Marenco Better, Gaspar Camaaño y Sigifredo Eusse Marino, journalists and writers of that newspaper. I had also given some of these poems to El Heraldo, which actually never published them. Instead, El Heraldo had published my short story Ese Obsceno Personaje Llamado María (That Obscene Character Called María), the winning short story at Universidad del Valle (1983). I had provided El Heraldo, and explicitly Germán Vargas, a close friend of García Márquez and a member of his literary group, with a copy of my still unpublished book El Retrato del Fantasma (The Portrait of The Ghost), during a brief meeting that we had in his newspaper office. That book is based on my child’s perception of my grandfather Hermenegildo Carranza, which I saw hanging on the wall for several years during my early childhood. My greatest literary disappointment came a while back when Vantage Press returned that manuscript to me, and since then I have mostly written poetry during my spare time. El Retrato del Fantasma is the next book I intend to get published with some additions of short stories written in the USA.

In Barranquilla, Colombia, I had read some of the poems at Universidad del Norte Auditorium, where I had also presented by audiovisual iconographic work on Bolívar’s life and at Universidad Simón Bolívar, accepting an invitation from his President, José Consuegra. I read my writings at the Foyer of Teatro Amira de La Rosa sponsored by Banco de la República, with an invitation from one of my greatest friends, its Director, Alfredo Gómez Zureck, a well-know pianist and engineer.

I had also read both my poems and excerpts of my short stories at the literary radio program Aquí la Literatura, directed by Professor Edmundo Ramos Vives, a literary program that also had international reception in the Caribbean. Professor Ramos Vives was the first person ever to call me "poet".

However, most of the poetry was written in the USA after my immigration in May 1989. I wrote my first poem in French in 2006, which happened spontaneously after reading about Rilke’s inability to write in French in his correspondence, and in 2008 after my visit to Paris, but most poetry written in French was done in the first half of this year (2010.)

In the United States, I had published my poems at NJIT (The Vector), Montclair State University (The Montclarion), and I have read them at Rutgers University and other literary cafes in New Jersey.

Indeed, I have also published some poems in this, my Alma Mater Literata blog.

The book describes some of my experiences at school and life events that overlaps during that time. Although the book is based on real life events it overlays facts with fantasy and creativity.

The following is the descriptive page from Alma Mater I.

About Alma Mater I

This book is in many ways the story of my university life, but also the book of cosmology, inspiration, romance, love and friendship, success and failure, achievement and disappointment. This is a book for everyone who ever attended school, at an alma mater, and can read poetry in at least one of the three languages in which it is originally written.

Acerca de Alma Mater I

Este libro es en su mayor parte un relato de mi vida universitaria, pero también el libro de la cosmología, de la inspiración, del romance, del amor y la amistad, del éxito y el fracaso, de los logros y las frustraciones. Este libro es para todo aquel que alguna vez estudió en un alma mater y para quien pueda leer poesía en por lo menos uno de los tres idiomas en que originalmente está escrito.

Au Sujet d’Alma Mater I

Ce livre-ci est en grande partie l’histoire de ma vie universitaire, mais c’est aussi le livre de la cosmologie, de l’inspiration, du romance, de l’amour et l’amitié, du succès et l’insuccès, de la réussite et la déception. Ceci est un livre pour tous ceux qui ont étudié à une alma mater et peuvent lire de la poésie au moins en l’une de trois langues dont il est écrit.

The book can be ordered from xlibris.com, amazon.com, barnesandnobles.com and it will be available n local bookstores shortly.

If you are interested in university life in the USA and involving various cultures this book could be part of an excellent curriculum study to build a literary analysis framework on contemporary university life poetry.

The book is available in hard cover (recommended), paperback, and as an e-book.

ISBN13 Hardcover: 978-1-4535-4897-4 ISBN13 Softcover: 978-1-4535-4896-7 ISBN13 eBook: 978-1-4535-4898-1 Published by Xlibris

Order Today!

Call 888-795-4274 ext. 7879, order online at www.xlibris.com, www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, or visit your local bookstore.

A Parenthesis for the Nobel

All Latin Americans and the entire Hispanic American nation are celebrating that the Nobel Prize in literature has returned to a Spanish speaking country. Congratulations to Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer who won the 2010 edition of the highest literary prize in the world. As a member of the so called Latin American Literary Boom of the 60’s, and following decades, Vargas Llosa together with Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes and García Márquez lead the movement. García Márquez had won the 1982 Nobel Prize primarily for his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, and overall work.

During my school time, I read together with my classmates La Ciudad y los Perros (The Time of the Hero), Conversación en la Catedral (Conversation in the Cathedral), La Casa Verde (The Green House), Los Jefes (The Cubs and Other Stories,), which became part of our literary analysis framework. My literature teacher, Ruby Díaz, thought that La Casa Verde was his masterpiece by then. I later read La Tía Julia y El Escribidor (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter), which was the book I enjoyed the most from Vargas Llosa, both because of the experience I lived at the moment and the implicit sense of humor, never shown in any other literary work I read by him. I also read La Guerra del Fin del Mundo, which seemed to me somewhat beyond the core realism and style already traditional in the Latin American literary boom. It seemed to me somewhat surreal in relation to its title, and I did not like it at all. Among Vargas Llosa’s greatest achievements is to have become a member of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española since 1996, and he sits on seat L.

When I read Vargas Llosa I thought that his writing style was closer to that of Borges than those of Cortázar or García Márquez, and this is possibly because of his military background. When I read Borges I thought that he was the most European of all Latin Americans in the Latin American literary boom or around it, although this was typical in Cortázar who frequently made it clear with French expressions as in Rayuela. Cortázar even wrote in French, his little known twisted-tongue title Les Autonautes de la Cosmoroute, and also his last book, on how fast people drive in Europe.

Vargas Llosa’s literary work is summarized as follows:

Fiction

* Los Jefes (1959). Incluye los relatos: Los Jefes, El desafío, El hermano menor, Día domingo, Un visitante y El abuelo

* La ciudad y los perros (1962)

* La casa verde (1966), Premio Rómulo Gallegos

* Los cachorros (1967)

* Conversación en La Catedral (1969)

* Pantaleón y las visitadoras (1973)

* La tía Julia y el escribidor (1977)

* La guerra del fin del mundo (1981)

* Historia de Mayta (1984)

* ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero? (1986)

* El hablador (1987)

* Elogio de la madrastra (1988)

* Lituma en los Andes (1993), Premio Planeta

* Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto (1997)

* La fiesta del chivo (2000)

* El paraíso en la otra esquina (2003)

* Travesuras de la niña mala (2006)

* El sueño del celta (2010)

Essay

* Carta de batalla por Tirant lo Blanc, prólogo a la novela de Joanot Martorell (1969)

* García Márquez: historia de un deicidio (1971)

* Historia secreta de una novela (1971)

* La orgía perpetua: Flaubert y Madame Bovary (1975)

* Entre Sartre y Camus, ensayos (1981)

* Contra viento y marea. Volumen I (1962-1982) (1983)

* La suntuosa abundancia, ensayo sobre Fernando Botero (1984)

* Contra viento y marea. Volumen II (1972-1983) (1986)

* Contra viento y marea. Volumen III (1964-1988) (1990)

* La verdad de las mentiras: ensayos sobre la novela moderna (1990)

* Carta de batalla por Tirant lo Blanc (1991)

* Un hombre triste y feroz, ensayo sobre George Grosz (1992)

* Desafíos a la libertad (1994)

* La utopía arcaica. José María Arguedas y las ficciones del indigenismo (1996)

* Cartas a un joven novelista (1997)

* El lenguaje de la pasión (2001)

* La tentación de lo imposible, ensayo sobre Los Miserables de Victor Hugo (2004)

* El viaje a la ficción, ensayo sobre Juan Carlos Onetti (2008)

Theatre

* La huida del Inca (1952)

* La señorita de Tacna (1981)

* Kathie y el hipopótamo (1983)

* La Chunga (1986)

* El loco de los balcones (1993)

* Ojos bonitos, cuadros feos (1996)

* Odiseo y Penélope (2007)

* Al pie del Támesis (2008)

* Las mil y una noches (2010)

Sartre and I... Sartre de Simone...

On Sartre and How I Passed my Sorbonne Exam

During a day that nuanced the morning rain with a sunny afternoon of the mid 80's, I took my Sorbonne exam in Barranquilla (Colombia). I was slightly late for the exam, and had yet to make a payment with money that I had borrowed from someone, and I cannot remember exactly who. My Sorbonne exam included plenty of literary topics, involving Sartre, Camus and other contemporary writers and also several important literary figures such as Voltaire, Molière and Montesquieu. There were also important historic aspects related to the Quatrième and Cinquième Republiques (Fourth and Fifth [French] Republics.) Because I ended up having less time than others exam takers, my exam had probably many orthographic issues in the end, and a few grammatical issues, two major factors not to attain an honorific grade like in previous exams. The fact is that the exam was conceptually hard with the expectation to know enough about Camus, in particular, about his novels La Peste and L'Étranger.

The contemporary relevance for that moment was the fact that Sartre and Camus were the brightest stars in French philosophy and literature of the time, and possibly relevant figures that match Hemingway, James, and Faulkner and other contemporary American writers in the perspective of culture and lifestyles of the 20th Century. In my view, Sartre was the master of dialectic and cognitive psychology, the master of what today is called emotional intelligence, the master of the spirit itself beyond religion believes. As Sartre was considered a non-believer, most likely beyond any comments he might have made, possibly because of his implicit association with the left thinking. As an adolescent, I never knew the political Sartre, and instead I actually learned about the purely philosophical French nationalist, it is clear from my comprehensive reading of Sartre that he had no significance in how I could possibly had learned about political ideas, primarily, from my few years in the law school. I had also felt quite attracted to existentialism after reading an excerpt from Sören Kierkegaard, a Christian existentialist, who had affirmed that “life is anguish and anxiety that ends with sin.”, meaning rather that anxiety ends when sin ends. In his series The Roads to Freedom (Les Chemins de la Liberté), Sartre is confronted with the fact that the individual must find freedom either following the dark path or fulfilling, like Pascal had suggested in his Peril, the divine path, as he emphasizes in Le Diable et Le Bon Dieu and L'Âge de Raison. The reference to the Bon Dieu clearly suggests that Sartre was not denying God's existence, at least the way Nietzsche did in many fashions, but he was instead a spiritual philosophical perspective away from any religious belief he might had. In fact, I believe he further addresses this issue in the L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Existentialism in a Humanism), probably the easiest book to read that he ever wrote, that the “important is not whether God exists [or not], but that man is abandoned to his chance...” In the difficulty that the naïve reader might have, this is simply explanation to free will, and an expression somewhat comparable to Pascal's theory of salvation in his Peril or rather a complementary way to state the same from an existentialist perspective. This was probably the statement that touched me the most. Instead of the existentialist principles of:  1) Existence precedes essence (essence is not destiny and one becomes what one wishes to be); 2) Time is of the Essence (as in Ortega y Gasset's famous sentence “life is the desperate struggle to become in reality what we are in project”); 3) Humanism (man is central to existentialism); 4) Freedom (is found in a the usage of a superior will, as in Kant, or Nietzche's will to power while being responsible for one's actions); 5) Ethical considerations driven by internal freedom.
The interpretation is clearly reflecting the emotional distress hindered by Kierkegaard, derived from life events. For instance, if we can think of a Christian who, in a today's global economic crisis, lost his or her job, house, car, and family, praying and trusting in Jesus could allow this person to overcome his or her distress, yet the experience is lived and cannot be disassociated with life itself, and it will be recorded in the intellect and it will affect that person at least subliminally. Should the person not believe [in God or follow Jesus otherwise], the experience would probably drive more anxiety.
I recently read a biography were Sartre had called himself “probably a Marxist” after listing a few matching items. But Sartre would love today to know how much greater than Marx he actually is. As a student, I had a great respect for socio-economic and political theories. However, Marx never encountered a special place in my heart, and my reading of Das Kapital was an unromantic one, simply because of some [diabolic] comments he made sometime, which I found quite offensive to my belief system. Foucault has called Sartre "the last of the Marxists." Unlike Marx or Nietzsche, the vitalist, Sartre seldom got involved into greater religious confrontation like in Nietzsche's Antichrist. Likewise, there is probably no Zarathustra, no spiritual transformation from child to camel, and from camel to lion, and from lion to child again. Instead, there is the human confrontation with the present and its rationale, the reasoning confronting the present. My point is that Sartre was not quite concerned with the problem of God's existence or believing in God, although he confronted the issue in his novels and philosophical writings with great care probably avoiding to touch the sensitivity of those who admired him beyond their own belief system. He was instead concerned with existence in the essence of how every experience creates and impresses image in our lives marking our destiny and when seen from social reality how the individual can perceive these impressions in relation to society itself, and the elements involved in being subject or object in each scenario. In his L'Etre et Le Néant, Sartre focuses on his principles of cognitive psychology, while in his Critique de la Raison Dialectique he is the master of reasoning beyond Kant or Hegel and drives very complex ideas through his theories. This is probably one of Sartre's books most difficult to read. As the novelist, Sartre had comparable success to that of a philosopher finding from Flaubert and possibly from Balzac the perfect mixture of social issues that conveyed his contemporary reality. Sartre is closer to perceiving the individual in the natural social scenario, while Camus is to place the individual's inner realm in conflict with the external world. Sartre's incomplete multi-volume work L'Idiot de la Famille is brilliantly written and one of the best and longest biographies ever written on Flaubert, including his childhood, where Gustave was, like Baudelaire, is depicted very close to his mother, and depending and relying on her, which according to Sartre “that becoming in love with her mother's character”, just like Baudelaire did, lead to the creation of Madame Bovary.
Finally, Sartre had also a significant relevance in my life since many of my short stories published by Colombian newspapers in the mid 80's were accompanied by articles related to his life, his thinking and his relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, probably France's greatest feminist writer. When I visited Paris I got the opportunity to visit their favorite place to meet, Les Deux Magots cafe, in the sector of Saint-Germain de Prés. It was an interesting experience to recall the many books and articles that I read from both. While my readings of Beauvoir were somehow superficial at that time, her influence on Sartre's life was very deep, and together they created an era of thinking hard to repeat in France's and Europe's literature and philosophy. When I reread Le Deuxième Sexe a couple of years ago, I thought that this is a book for every [young] woman to read anywhere in the world.

La Place Sartre-Beauvoir in Paris's Saint-Germain de Prés Sector.

Sartre and how I passed my Sorbonne Exam

Sartre is very difficult to read... So much more difficult to translate..