Alonso Cueto

Last updated

Alonso Cueto
Cueto, Alonso -FILSA 20171029 fRF09.jpg
Cueto in FILSA 2017
Born (1954-04-30) 30 April 1954 (age 69)
Lima, Peru
OccupationWriter, journalist, professor
Notable works La hora azul
El susurro de la mujer ballena
La viajera del viento, Grandes miradas

Alonso Cueto Caballero (born 1954 in Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian author, university professor and newspaper columnist.

Contents

His writing career has spanned nearly four decades, during which he has produced dozens of works of fiction, articles and essays. He has won numerous accolades for his work, and several of his novels have been adapted for film.

Biography

The son of Peruvian philosopher and educator Carlos Cueto Fernandini and children's literature promoter Lilly Caballero Elbers, Alonso Cueto spent his early childhood in France and the United States before returning to Peru at the age of seven.

Cueto earned a bachelor's degree in literature from the Catholic University of Peru and a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed his first collection of short stories, La batalla del pasado.

He returned to Peru in 1984 and published several books over the succeeding decades, including the award-winning Tigre Blanco. At the same time, he worked as a columnist for several publications and served as director of El Comercio’sEl Dominical Sunday supplement.

In 2003, he left El Comercio to pursue writing and teaching full-time. He is married to Kristeen Keenan Atwook and has two sons -Daniel and Esteban-.

Writing career

In 2005, he published his best-known novel, La hora azul , in which a wealthy lawyer searches for the woman his military father had taken prisoner during the armed struggle between the Peruvian government and Shining Path rebels. Mario Vargas Llosa called the book, which won the prestigious Herralde Prize in 2005, "a magnificent novel that lucidly and imaginatively describes the aftermath of 10 years of civil war and terrorism", and J.M. Coetzee describes it as "a dark and disturbing novel". La hora azul was followed by two spiritual successors, La pasajera and La viajera del viento, to form Redención, the acclaimed trilogy on the years of terrorism and political strife in Peru.

His novels have been translated into sixteen languages, with Frank Wynne's English-language translation of La hora azul, The Blue Hour, winning the Valle Inclán prize for translation.

Besides novels, Cueto has written several short story collections and essays as well as a children's book and a play. He also teaches in the Department of Literature at the Catholic University of Peru and writes a weekly column for El Comercio newspaper.

Several of Cueto's works have been adapted for film, including La pasajera, which was the inspiration for Magallanes by director Salvador del Solar. Grandes miradas was adapted into Mariposa negra, a 2006 film by the awarded director Francisco Lombardi, and La hora azul served as the basis for the 2014 movie of the same name by Evelyne Pegot-Ogier.

In October, 2020 the University of Texas Press published the English version of The Wind Traveller translated by Frank Wynne and Jessie Mendez Sayer.

Awards and honors

Works

English translations

Film Adaptations

His novel Grandes Miradas was adapted into a movie (Mariposa Negra) by Francisco Lombardi in 2006. Cueto's novel La Hora Azul/The Blue Hour which won the Herralde Prize in 2006. [1] was published in English in 2012 (translated by Frank Wynne) and was shortlisted for the 2013 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize and won the Valle Inclán Prize in 2013.

Reviews

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camilo José Cela</span> Spanish novelist

Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquess of Iria Flavia was a Spanish novelist, poet, story writer and essayist associated with the Generation of '36 movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaime Bayly</span> Television personality from Peru

Jaime Bayly Letts is a Peruvian writer, journalist and television personality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José María Merino</span> Spanish novelist

José María Merino is a Spanish novelist born in A Coruña, Galicia on 5 March 1941. He is the father of two daughters, María and Ana, both of them university professors. He lived for several years in León and currently lives in Madrid. Best known for his novels and short stories, he is also a poet and a travel writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diamela Eltit</span> Chilean writer and university professor

Diamela Eltit is a Chilean writer and university professor. She is a recipient of the National Prize for Literature.

Sergio Pitol Deméneghi was a Mexican writer, translator and diplomat. In 2005, he received the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world.

Luisa Castro is a Spanish writer and journalist who has published in Galician and Spanish. She has lived in Barcelona, New York City, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, Naples and Bordeaux. She is currently Director of the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin, Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmen Posadas</span> Uruguayan-Spanish author

Carmen Posadas is a prize-winning Uruguayan-Spanish author of books for children. She also writes for film and television. She is a recipient of the Premio Planeta de Novela.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Manuel Rodriguez (writer)</span>

Juan Manuel Rodríguez López is a Spanish-born, naturalized Ecuadorian author and professor. He holds a licenciate/BA degree in philosophy and a doctorate in literature from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE). He was a professor at Universidad Central del Ecuador and Universidad Católica, as well as a founding professor of Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where he was Dean of the College of Communication and Contemporary Arts.

Alexis Iparraguirre is a Peruvian short story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guadalupe Nettel</span> Mexican writer (born 1973)

Guadalupe Nettel is a Mexican writer. She has published four novels, including The Body Where I Was Born (2011) and After the Winter (2014). She won the Premio de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero and the Premio Herralde literary awards. She has been a contributor to Granta, The White Review, El País, The New York Times, La Repubblica and La Stampa. Her works have been translated to 17 languages. She is the editor of the Revista de la Universidad de México, the oldest cultural magazine in Mexico.

<i>The Blue Hour</i> (novel) 2005 novel by Alonso Cueto

The Blue Hour is a 2005 novel by Peruvian novelist Alonso Cueto. It won the Premio Herralde de Novela for Spanish-language novels in 2006. The English translation, by Frank Wynne, was published in 2012, and won the 2013 Premio Valle-Inclán; it was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize in the same year.

The Premio Herralde is a Spanish literary prize. It is awarded annually by the publishing house Anagrama to an original novel in the Spanish language. Established in 1983, the prize takes its name from Jorge Herralde, founder of Anagrama. Accompanied by a cash prize, the award is announced every year in November.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustavo Rodríguez (writer)</span>

Gustavo Rodríguez Vela is a Peruvian writer and communication expert, author of several novels and story books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silvia Núñez del Arco</span>

Silvia Núñez del Arco Vidal is a Peruvian writer and wife of journalist Jaime Bayly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matilde Sánchez</span> Argentine journalist, writer, and translator

Matilde Sánchez is an Argentine journalist, writer, and translator. Beginning in 1982 she developed a prolific career in the field of cultural journalism. She edited the Culture and Nation supplement of the newspaper Clarín, as well as Ñ Magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nativel Preciado</span> Spanish journalist and writer

Natividad del Belén Preciado González, known as Nativel Preciado, is a Spanish journalist and writer.

The Premio Biblioteca Breve is a literary award given annually by the publisher Seix Barral to an unpublished novel in the Spanish language. Its prize is €30,000 and publication of the winning work. It is delivered in February, to a work from the preceding year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dora Varona</span> Cuban-Peruvian poet, narrator, and missionary (1932–2018)

Dora Varona Gil was a Cuban-Peruvian poet, narrator, and missionary. After the death of her husband, Peruvian writer Ciro Alegría, she compiled, edited, and studied his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felipe Hernández Vélez</span> Spanish poet, novelist and musician (born 1960)

Felipe Hernández Vélez is a Spanish poet, novelist and musician.

<i>The Blue Hour</i> (2014 film) Peruvian film

The Blue Hour, also known as Before Dawn, is a 2014 Peruvian drama film written, directed and co-produced by Evelyne Pegot in her directorial debut. It is based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Alonso Cueto. Starring Giovanni Ciccia, Jackelyn Vásquez and Rossana Fernández-Maldonado.

References

  1. "Out of the darkness, a literary renaissance in Peru". The New York Times . 1 November 2006. Retrieved 29 October 2010.