The skilful brevity of Juan Carlos Onetti, master of existential incisiveness

“The Well” by the Uruguayan writer is back in the bookstore. He who, together with others, such as Garcia Márquez and Bolaño, was the protagonist of the Italian interest in South American authors. The only one who had his debut in the short novel

Between the sixties and seventies there was the so-called Latin American boom, a sudden interest in European-modernist inspired literature by Argentine, Peruvian, Mexican and Colombian writers, such as Julio Cortázar, Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez. In Italy it is enough to see the Feltrinelli catalog of those years to understand their impact, parallel to the Guevarian celebration. But the glory of these bestsellers also had the function of making known other authors of the Americas of the previous generation, who had remained hidden for a long time, such as Roberto Arlt, Octavio Paz or Juan Carlos Onetti, born in 1909 in Montevideo.