Rodríguez Monegal, Emír

Emir Rodriguez Monegal, literary scholar and biographer, critic, and editor was born in Melo, Uruguay on July 28, 1921, and died in New Haven, Conn. on November 14, 1985. At the time of his death he was Professor of Latin American Literature and Director of the Latin American Studies Council at Yale University. Rodriguez Monegal became in 1945 editor of the literary section of the weekly Marcha. In 1949 he founded the journal Número, which he co-edited with Manuel Claps and Idea Vilariño until 1955. In 1966 he founded and edited the literary and cultural journal Mundo Nuevo (published in Paris until 1969). He was the author of numerous books and articles many of which made important contributions to the understanding of modern Latin American writing, notably among which are El juicio de los parricidas: la nueva generación argentina y sus maestros (1956), Literatura uruguaya del medio siglo (1966), Narradores de esta América (1963; 1969), and El boom de la novela latinoamericana (1972).

Rodriguez Monegal was also know for his literary biographies of Andres Bello (El otro Andrés Bello [1969]), of Horacio Quiroga ( El desterrado: vida y obra de Horacio Quiroga [1968]), of Pablo Neruda ( El viajero inmóvil: Introducción a Pablo Neruda [1966] and Neruda, el viajero inmóvil [1977]), and of Jorge Luis Borges ( Jorge Luis Borges: A Literary Biography [1978]). He also edited critical and literary collections, among which are José Enrique Rodó, 1871-1917 (1963, 1967), El cuento uruguayo: de los orígenes al modernismo (1965), Borges par lui-memê (1970, 1978, Spanish ed. 1983), The Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature (with Thomas Colchie, 1977), Pablo Neruda (1980), and Borges, a Reader: A Selection from the Writings of Jorge Luis Borges (with Alistair Reid, 1981).