a brief life
p first published in 1950 this is a brilliant novel by one of the greats of latin american literature p onettis novels ar ethe corner stones of our modernity . carlos fuentes p the graham greene of uruguay ... foreshadowing the work of beckett and camus . sunday telegraph p when you see that someone can write so well it makes you want to believe that things cant be so bad in this world . mario vargas llosa p latin american literature has few secrets to divulge to the english speaking world ; but one of them is the uruguayan novelist juan carlos onetti . the guardian uk p in a brief life juan carlos onettis protagonist brausen is caring for his wife after a long illness . to compensate for the physical void which temporarily stalls their caresses brausen eavesdrops on the conversation of his neighbors a husband and wife imagining their gestures and their expressions . p but he not only wishes to imagine himself as someone else he also seeks release from the world he knows . he leads many lives some real and some fantastic in order to experience a moment of psychic weightlessness a brief life . p juan carlos onetti is acknowledged as one of the great latin american writers of the twentieth century . his best known work is the shipyard . he died in 1994 .