Jaime Collyer

Education

University of Chile.

Career

Born in 1955, Collyer claims he discovered the joy of writing fiction as a child in school at a young age. In 1986, he co-wrote a children"s book Hacia el nuevo mundo, and his writing career began in earnest from there. Collyer cites a diverse and wide ranging set of influences from various countries and cultures.

Amongst them are Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov as well as German post war writers such as Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass.

Chief amongst his influences are authors of Latin-American extraction, including Julio Cortázar and Juan Carlos Onetti. Perhaps his most salient influence, an author to whom he has been compared, is the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges.

Undoubtedly an influence, Collyer was even dubbed "The New Borges" after the release of the collection Gente al acecho (People on the Prowl).

Achievements

• He published El infiltrado in 1989, which was awarded a prize as the best Latin-American novel translated to French that year. Collyer has continued to publish works to much critical acclaim and has won the Premio Municipal de Santiago for his short story collections, amongst various other awards for his publications in general.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Gente al acecho (Biblioteca del sur) (Spanish Edition)
  • El Habitante Del Cielo (Biblioteca breve) (Spanish Edition)
  • Hacia El Nuevo Mundo (Spanish Edition)

Politics

Later in university, studying psychology, he realised "the only thing I wanted to do was to write." Having finished his degree in 1980, Collyer moved to Madrid, Spain in 1981 to begin a writing career and to study International Relations and Political Science. The New York Times Book Review described him as "a born writer".