Arnaldo Calveyra


Arnaldo Calveyra was an Argentine poet, novelist and playwright, living in Paris since 1960. In 1999, Calveyra was made a Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters for his contributions to the arts.

Life

Calveyra was born in Mansilla, Argentina in 1929 and remained in the Entre Ríos Province for his early life. He began attending high school in 1943 in Concepción del Uruguay In 1950, he left the province and moved to La Plata where he pursued a degree at the Faculty of Humanities at the National University of La Plata. A research fellowship brought Calveyra to Paris in December 1960. There he met and came to work closely with Julio Cortázar, Alejandra Pizarnik, Claude Roy, Gaëtan Picon, Cristina Campo and Laure Bataillon. In 1968, Calveyra married Monique Tur; they have two children, Beltran and Eva. Calveyra and Tur live in Paris. He died of a heart attack in 2015 in Paris.

Career

Calveyra's first book of poetry, Cartas Para Que La Alegria, was much heralded by Carlos Mastronardi; in Victoria Ocampo's Sur magazine No. 261 Carlos Mastronardi wrote, "The pages of Cartas exhume remote happenings and hazy states of the spirit, a language of a sustained and unvarying tone that allows us to access volatile capacities. It's easy to feel how Calveyra negotiates expressive dilated forms, with incidental clauses that frequently capsize poetic essence. Attentive to the pure and docile nature he gives to the voices that come from its urgent intimacy, Calveyra dispenses with the heavy appoggiaturas and connectors that are themselves the strictness of logical language."
Like many Argentine artists and intellectuals, Calveyra emigrated to Paris in the 1960s buoyed by the dynamic cultural landscape there at the time. By the 1970s, the Guerra Sucia obstructed any possibility of a return to Argentina. Calveyra remained in Paris, where he worked with the English film and theater director Peter Brook and published his own works with the French publishing house Actes-Sud. In 1988, poet Juan Gelman recommended Calveyra to the Argentine publisher Jose Luis Mangieri, effectively reintroducing him to an Argentine audience.
Argentine literary critic Pablo Gianera recently wrote, "It isn't inexact to say that Arnaldo Calveyra never abandoned the Entre Rios landscape, this primary terrain that gave forth to the almost relationship he sustains with language. Everything he names, seems named for the first time... Calveyra's language of discovery is a mechanic of surprisingly reversible time; with each word, he recovers with intimacy and pain that which no longer exists. It is the movement of memory that closes like a circle around origins and seizes forever those things that are as fleeting as light itself.".

Awards

Cartas para que la alegría, Cooperativa Impresora y Distribuidora, Buenos Aires, 1959.
El diputado está triste, Editorial Leonardo, Buenos Aires, 1959.
Moctezuma Collection Théâtre du Monde Entier, Editorial Gallimard, 1969.
Latin American Trip, Cahiers Renaud-Barrault n° 75, Editorial Gallimard, 1971.
Latin American Trip, Monte Avila Editores, Caracas, Venezuela, 1978.
Lettres pour que la joie, Editorial Actes Sud, 1983.
Iguana, iguana, Editorial Actes Sud, 1985.
Journal du dératiseur, Editorial Actes Sud, 1987.
Cartas para que la alegría; e Iguana, iguana, Editorial Libros de Tierra Firme, Buenos Aires, 1988.
L'éclipse de la balle Editorial Papiers-Actes Sud, 1988.
Los bares / Les bars Editorial Les Yeux ouverts, Ginebra, 1988.
Le lit d'Aurélia, Editorial Actes Sud, 1989.
La cama de Aurelia, Editorial Plaza y Janés, Barcelona, 1990.
L'origine de la lumière, Editorial Actes Sud, 1992.
Palinure Editorial Tarabuste, 1992.
Anthologie personnelle, Editorial Actes Sud, edited by Florence Delay, 1994.
Second edition of Lettres pour que la joie, Editorial Actes Sud, 1997.
El hombre del Luxemburgo Editorial Tusquets, Barcelona, 1997.
Si l'Argentine est un roman, Editorial Actes Sud, 1998.
L'homme du Luxembourg, Editorial Actes Sud, 1998.
La cama de Aurelia, Tusquets Editores, Buenos Aires, 1999.
Morse y otros textos, Ediciones Mate, Buenos Aires, 1999.
Le livre du miroir, Ed. Actes Sud, 2000.
"Apuntes para una reencarnación", Diario de poesía, No. 53, Buenos Aires, October 2002.
Si la Argentina fuera una novela, Editorial Simurg, Buenos Aires, 2000.
Libro de las mariposas, Alción Editora, Córdoba, Argentina, 2001.
"Bibliothèques idéales", Editions Le Temps qu'il fait
Vienne, France, July 2002.
Paris par écrit, Vingt écrivains parlent de leur arrondissement, Éditions de l'Inventaire et la Maison des écrivains, Paris, 2002.
Diario del fumigador de guardia Editorial VOX, Bahía Blanca, 2002.
Maïs en grégorien, Ed. Actes Sud, 2003.
Second edition of L'origine de la lumière, Ed. Actes Sud, 2003.
El origen de la luz, Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 2004.
Livre des papillons/Libro de las mariposas, Editorial Le temps qu'il fait, Cognac, France, bilingual edition, 2004.
Maizal del gregoriano, Editorial Adriana Hidalgo, Buenos Aires, 2005.
Tres hombres, Editorial Eloísa Cartonera, Buenos Aires, 2005.
Diario de Eleusis, Editorial Adriana Hidalgo, Buenos Aires, 2006.
Journal d'Eleusis, ediciones Actes Sud, 2008.
Poesía reunida, Editorial Adriana Hidalgo, Buenos Aires, 2008.
El cuaderno griego, Editorial Adriana Hidalgo, Buenos Aires, 2009.
Florida, in Le goût de Buenos Aires, Jeanine Baude, Le Mercure de France, Paris, 2009.
Le cahier grec, Actes Sud, 2010.
El caballo blanco de Mozart, Editorial La Bestia Equilátera, Buenos Aires, 2010.
"Una flor para Selma", in La ciudad como un plano, edited by Matías Serra Bradford, Editorial La Bestia Equilátera, Buenos Aires, 2010.
La lluvia de sobretecho..., Editorial Mágicas
Naranjas, Buenos Aires, 2011.