Artificial Respiration

NOVEL, 1980. ANAGRAMA, 2001. 224 PAGES.

The writer Emilio Renzi, who has written a conjectural story about an old family tale, finally meets its protagonist, his uncle Marcelo who lives in the provinces researching the papers of the private secretary to a man who might have been a hero but whom he suspects was actually a traitor. These two characters, plus others such as a Polish man; a depiction of Witold Gombrowicz, act out a detective story which serves as a reflection on both Argentinian history and literature and its masks. This is a radically original novel which, in a recent survey among Argentine writers, was chosen as one of the ten best of the 20th Century.