Abós, Álvaro

Álvaro Abós was born in Buenos Aires, the city where he lives in and will die in, with an uneasy and happy interlude, a meditative exile, in Barcelona. He has published novels, stories, chronicles, essays, and biographies. Among his titles, the most celebrated have been his noir fiction novel Restos humanos (Human Remains) and Al pie de la letra. Guía literaria de Buenos Aires (To The Letter. Literary Guide of Buenos Aires), in which he portrays a hundred writers who lived, created, and shipwrecked in the city of La Plata. He has written about three characters from Buenos Aires: the editor and publisher Natalio Botana, the painter and magician Sul Solar, and the philosopher, poet, and happiness professor Macedonio Fernández. He received Platino’s 2014 Konex Award for these biographies. He loves assembling anthologies because he can expand his reading passion: some are El Libro de Buenos Aires (The Book of Buenos Aires), about chronicles of the city; Asesinos (Assassins), about crime stories by authors foreign to the genre like Whitman or Proust; El facineroso (The Delinquent), about police reports by the master Roberto Arlt, and the last: Cuentos para leer los sábados (Stories to Read on Saturdays), about the tales Borges published in a popular newspaper, and El crimen perfecto. 13 thrillers argentinos (The Perfect Crime. Thirteen Argentinian Thrillers). He has won the Jaén Fiction Award and the 2012 Municipal Literature Award of the City of Buenos Aires.


Portrait of Álvaro Abós by Gabriela Rubio