BIOY CASARES, Adolfo

(1914-)

   Argentine writer, noted from his first book, Prologo ("Prologue") (1929), for the surreal displacements of his work, which uses sf or detective forms in an abstract, parodic fashion, and is generally metaphysical in intent. La invencion de Morel (1940; trans Ruth I.C. Simms in The Invention of Morel and Other Stories 1964 US), tells in this fashion of its protagonist's eventually successful search through appearances and realities for IMMORTALITY; it was filmed in Italy as L'Invenzione di Morel, dir Emidio Greco, in 1974. Plan de evasion (1945; trans Suzanne Jill Levine as A Plan for Escape 1975 US) had close thematic links with the earlier novel. ABC's "El Perjurio de la Nieve" was filmed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson as El Crimen de Oribe (1950), and features a house whose occupants are caught in a time-loop. ABC's most substantial novel, El sueno del los heroes (1954; trans Diana Thorold as The Dream of the Heroes 1987 US), features the saving of a workman from death by a mysterious figure, possibly supernatural, and the repetition of the same events years later, but without any intervention. Dormir al sol (1973; trans Suzanne Jill Levine as Asleep in the Sun 1978 US), which has soul-transplants, conflates the transformations of psychosurgery with totalitarianism.ABC met Jorge Luis BORGES in 1932. They became close literary friends, and under the shared pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq published Seis problemas para Don Isidro Parodi (coll 1942; trans Norman Thomas di Giovanni as Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi 1981 US), a set of introvertive detections. Both authors, with ABC's wife Silvina Ocampo (1903-), collaborated in the editing of a fantasy collection, Antologia de la Literatura Fantastica (anth 1940; rev 1976; trans as The Book of Fantasy 1976 US). If ABC has for some years lived in the shadow of his famous friend, the continuing translation of his work may rectify a misprision.

   JC

   See also: ISLANDS; LATIN AMERICA; PARALLEL WORLDS.