Ernesto Sábato

Ernesto Sábato (born June 24, 1911, Rojas, Argentina—died April 30, 2011, Buenos Aires) was an Argentine novelist, journalist, and essayist whose novels are notable for their concern with philosophical and psychological issues and whose political and social studies were highly influential in Argentina in the latter half of the 20th century.

Educated as a physicist and mathematician, Sábato attended the National University of La Plata (1929–36), where he received a doctorate in physics in 1937. He did postdoctoral work at the Curie Laboratory in Paris in 1938 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939 and returned to Argentina in 1940. From 1940 to 1945 he taught theoretical physics at the National University of La Plata and at a teachers college in Buenos Aires. He began to contribute to the literary section of La Nación, one of Argentina’s leading newspapers, articles that stated his opposition to the Juan Perón government, and as a result he was removed from his teaching posts in 1945.

Uno y el universo (1945; “One and the Universe”), a series of aphorisms, statements, and personal observations by Sábato on diverse philosophical, social, and political matters, was his first literary success. The novel El túnel (1948; “The Tunnel”; Eng. trans. The Outsider) won Sábato national and international notice. The protagonist of the novel is a typical existential antihero who is unable to communicate with anyone. Faced with the absurdity of the human condition, he withdraws from society. Sábato subsequently published nonfiction works such as Hombres y engranajes (1951; “Men and Gears”), examining the myth of progress and the use of machine technology as a model for social structures, and Heterodoxia (1953; “Heterodoxy”), on the problems of modern civilization and what Sábato saw as an attendant loss of earlier moral and metaphysical foundations.

After the fall of Perón in 1955, Sábato published El otro rostro del peronismo (1956; “The Other Face of Peronism”), which is an attempt to study the historical and political causes of the violence and unrest of Perón’s rule. The essay “El caso Sábato” (1956; “The Sábato Case”) is a plea for reconciliation of Peronist and anti-Peronist forces.

His second novel, Sobre héroes y tumbas (1961; On Heroes and Tombs), is a penetrating psychological study of man, interwoven with philosophical ideas and observations previously treated in his essays. Tres aproximaciones a la literatura de nuestro tiempo (1968; “Three Approximations to the Literature of Our Time”) are critical literary essays that deal specifically with the works of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jorge Luis Borges, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The novel Abaddón el exterminador (1974, corrected and revised, 1978; “Abaddón the Exterminator”; Eng. trans. The Angel of Darkness) contains the ironic statements on literature, art, philosophy, and the excesses of rationalism that characterize his work.

Sábato in 1984 received the Cervantes Prize, Hispanic literature’s most prestigious award. The award followed the publication in Spain of the “Sábato Report” (1984; Nunca más [“Never Again”]), an investigation of human rights violations in Argentina, of which Sábato was the principal author. The document was vital in aiding the prosecution of military leaders responsible for the killings of some 10,000–30,000 citizens during the country’s Dirty War (1976–83). In 2000, in his 89th year, Sábato released a new work, a reflection on Western culture titled La resistencia (“The Resistance”), on the Internet prior to its print publication.