Gabriel Casaccia
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| Gabriel Casaccia Bibolini | |
|---|---|
 Gabriel Casaccia |
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| Born | April 20, 1907 Asunción, Paraguay |
| Died | November 24, 1980 (aged 73) Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, playwriter |
| Genres | Modern Realism |
| Notable work(s) | La Babosa, La Llaga |
Gabriel Casaccia Bibolini (April 20, 1907—November 24, 1980) was a Paraguayan novelist.
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[edit] Childhood and Youth
He was born in Asunción, the son of Benigno Casaccia and Margarita Bibolini. He studied in The National School of the Capital. He finished his Law studies at the Law School of the National University of his mother town, and started his work as a journalist, writing for El Liberal and El Diario, as well as in several magazines of Asuncion, and later devoted himself to the narrative. During his first 17 years of literary production he signed his books with his first name and both last names: Benigno Casaccia Bibolini. Later on he adopted the name of Gabriel Casaccia, which was to be the definite one, and by which he is known with his main novels and story collections. He developed in his youth, a short political activity but then he moved to Argentina, living in Posadas, first and then in Buenos Aires.
He is considered by critics, as the founder of the modern narrative in Paraguay. Augusto Roa Bastos, the greatest novelist of Paraguay, winner of the Cervantes Prize, says “Gabriel Casaccia is the starter of the contemporary narrative in Paraguay, what gives to all of his work a founder character, and to his author the strange merit of having started the gender in a country which was novelistic ally inedited.”
[edit] History
Roque Vallejos, poet and investigator, also says:” From Barret nobody in the Paraguayan narrative has appointed so rudely the “national reality”. We refer to that human experience that have been happening in Paraguay for more than four centuries, and to which many times the sociology has seen as “fiction”, but to which reality in the life of the people cannot be hidden or avoided.” I don't believe that the national reality is an enigma or a mystery”, Casaccia says in a letter to the author of this essay, mentioning then several facts that despite their negativity are true:”compensatory feeling of the past”;” insatisfaction of the present”; lying of the history”; “slumbering narcissism”, “ lack of civil heroes”, “ lack of knowledge of the freedom”. “ All of these and much more,- Casaccia says, is our reality”….It has been said that he is the best representative of the existentialist literature of our country…The literature after Casaccia has been inspired in his work, transforming in a “problematic phenomenon”. This type of anti-literature that Casaccia makes is presented as the least rhetorical means and the most effective one to unveil the reality…”
Hugo Rodríguez-Alcala, in his book History of Paraguayan Literature(1971) writes about Casaccia and “La Babosa”:” it's an artist of exquisite sensibility, obsessed by a memory of his childhood and teens years. Child and adolescent, he spent long time in a small town 30 km from Asuncion. This is a quiet place, by a beautiful lake, the Lago Ypacarai. The houses with large corridors, patios and gardens with huge trees stand still in silence inviting to have a quiet and sedative life. How is this exiled author of “La Babosa” remember this town Areguá ? Will it be an idyllic place to which the nostalgic feelings gave charm, a rustic beauty? None of this. Maybe for a contrary sentimentalism, Casaccia will convert it in the scenario he most hates and not the one he most loves. There we see rude and creatures , full of stinginess, low passions, banalities of a sordid existence, empty, non authentic. The seven capital sins have incarnated in Aregua the most potent Paraguayan version of its universal escence…In the nation which adores its heroes, the anti-heroes with “ la babosa” appeared. It will be said that Casaccia lives in a liteary time of anti-heroes proliferation…Granted. But still we shouldn't forget the fundamental data mentioned above: in our author we can see a reaction against the nation's way of feeling and the way they expresses life , and this reaction gets its own character in the way of concrete circumstances. All in all, this anti-idealizing fury and anti-feelings responds concretely to an idealizing” mania” to which we have to unmask”.
Raul Amaral, critic and intellectual of important story in the Paraguayan culture of this century , in the ”Introduction to the postume novel“ Los Huertas”, of Casaccia, states:” Something important must be remembered so as not to continue repeting the same mistakes, derived of a negative and incomplete vision:Casaccia does not proceeded with the spiritual demolition or creative of Aregua (and least of all of Paraguay) in his narrative, but he only install social groups, people and facts followed by a problematic ( one or several) that has undoubtedly universal roots. The sorrow, the evil, the malice, don't reflect only national exclusivities, but are also from people who live particular situations in any part of this world.”
[edit] Works
The total literary production includes.-throughout fifty years.- ten titles including seven novels, two collections of stories and a theatre play. Ordered cronologycally, his novels are: “Hombres y mujeres fantoches” (1930), “Mario Pareda”(1939),”La babosa(1952), “La llaga” (1963),”Los exiliados”(1966), “Los herederos” (1975) y “Los Huertas” (1981), published after his death. The story collections are “El guajhu”(1938) and ”El pozo”(1947). The theatre play “El bandolero” was published in 1932. He was married to an Argentinian named Carmen Dora Parola, and left children. He died in Buenos Aires, on November 24th, 1980.
[edit] External Links
[edit] References
Diccionario Biográfico "FORJADORES DEL PARAGUAY", Primera Edicción Enero de 2000. Distribuidora Quevedo de Ediciones. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Casaccia, Gabriel |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Paraguayan novelist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 20, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Asunción, Paraguay |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 24, 1980 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
