Tomás Eloy Martínez facts for kids
Tomás Eloy Martínez (born July 16, 1934 – died January 31, 2010) was an Argentine journalist and writer. He was known for his unique way of mixing real historical events with fictional stories in his books. Many people see him as a very important and creative person in Latin American writing and journalism.
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Life and Work
Tomás Eloy Martínez was born on July 16, 1934, in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. He studied Spanish and Latin American literature at the University of Tucumán. He also earned a master's degree from the University of Paris.
Early Career in Journalism
From 1957 to 1961, he worked as a film critic for the La Nación newspaper in Buenos Aires. Later, he became the editor-in-chief of Primera Plana magazine from 1962 to 1969. He also worked as a reporter in Paris for a year.
In 1969, Eloy Martínez interviewed Juan Domingo Perón, who was a former Argentine President living in exile in Madrid. These interviews became the basis for two of his most famous novels: La Novela de Perón (1985) and Santa Evita (1995). In these books, he blended real historical facts with made-up stories. This was a new way of writing that made his books very special.
Reporting on Important Events
In 1970, Eloy Martínez became the director of Panorama magazine. He also wrote for La Opinion newspaper. He helped make Latin American writings, like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, famous around the world.
On August 15, 1972, he learned about a prison uprising in Rawson. Panorama was the only publication in Buenos Aires that reported the true story. This was very different from what the Argentine government was saying. Because of this, he was fired on August 22. He then went to Rawson and Trelew to report on the Massacre of Trelew. He wrote a book about it called The Passion According to Trelew. The military government in Argentina banned his book.
Life in Exile and Later Years
From 1972 to 1975, Eloy Martínez was in charge of the culture section of La Nación. When the military took power in 1976, La Opinión was shut down. He was forced to leave Argentina and lived in Caracas, Venezuela, from 1975 to 1983. There, he helped start a newspaper called El Diario de Caracas.
In his book The Memoirs of the General, he wrote about being threatened by a dangerous group. He even said that gunmen once threatened his young son. Around 1979, he met Susana Rotker, and they had a daughter named Sol Ana in 1986.
In 1984, he moved to the Washington, D.C. area in the United States. He became a professor at the University of Maryland. In 1991, he helped create and launch a daily newspaper called Siglo 21 in Guadalajara, Mexico. He also started a literary section for the Página/12 newspaper in Buenos Aires.
Later in the 1990s, he returned to the United States. He became a professor and director of the Latin American studies program at Rutgers University. He continued to write for newspapers in Latin America. This period inspired his last book, Purgatory. In this book, he wrote about the sadness of living away from home. He also wrote about the difficult impact on families of the "desaparecidos." These were people who were kidnapped and believed to be dead during the military rule in Argentina.
Tomás Eloy Martínez was also a teacher and gave many talks. He wrote columns for La Nación and the New York Times. His articles appeared in many newspapers and journals across Latin America. He received important awards like the Guggenheim Fellowship and Woodrow Wilson fellowships. In 2002, he won the Premio Alfaguara de Novela for his novel Flight of the Queen. His books mostly focused on Argentina during and after the time of Juan Domingo Perón and his wife, Eva Duarte de Perón (Evita).
Tomás Eloy Martínez passed away in Buenos Aires on January 31, 2010, after battling cancer.
Main Publications
- Sacred (1969)
- The Passion According to Trelew (1973)
- The Perón Novel (1985)
- La Mano del Amo (1991)
- Santa Evita (1995)
- The Memoirs of the General (1996)
- Common Place - Death (1998)
- The Argentine Dream (1999)
- True Fictions (2000)
- The Flight of the Queen (2002)
- Requiem for a Lost Country (2003)
- The Lives of the General (2004)
- The Tango Singer (2004)
- Purgatory (2008)
See also
In Spanish: Tomás Eloy Martínez para niños
