José Agustín

José Agustín Ramírez Gómez (born August 19, 1944 in Acapulco) is a Mexican novelist.^[1]

Career

Agustin's first novel, La Tumba (The Tomb), was the brief but provocative story of a Mexican upperclass teen, deemed indecent by the public but gathering praise from older writers. This and his most famous work, De Perfil (Profile view), a fast and detailed view of three days in the main character's life, show stylistic similarities to James Joyce's work, especially A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

He was considered a member of the so-called Onda literature, onda (wave) being slang for current and fashionable views in the eyes of young people.

A common technique in his work is mixing character's speech with narrative, without making any kind of distinction (free indirect discourse). Thus the reader finds a long dialogue written in a single sentence, and is expected to realize which character is speaking as he reads the words. He also makes use of the stream of consciousness technique.^[2]

Awards

• 1977 Guggenheim Fellowship ^[3]

Bibliography

References