Background

Salvador Elizondo Alcalá was born on December 19, 1932, in Federal District, Mexico. He was the son of Salvador Elizondo Pani, a businessman, and Josefina Alcalde y Gonzalez Martinez. He was also a nephew of architect Mario Pani.

Education

Elizondo was taught by tutors and nannies and attended private schools, and his education was a combination of indulgence and anarchy. He continually became interested in new areas, grew bored with them and dropped them in favor of something else, which he would grow tired of in turn.

Elizondo lived with his family in Berlin during the 1930s and when they returned to Mexico City, he attended the Colegio Aleman (German School). He later attended a private school in California and did college- prep work at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Eventually, he received a certificate of proficiency in English from the University of Cambridge, and also traveled in Italy, France, and England, where he studied various subjects, including architecture and cinematography. Later, he studied literature at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Career

Although Elizondo had planned to be a writer, he undertook his studies in Europe with the thought that he would become a painter. Later, he became interested in film, but found that there was not much opportunity for filmmakers in Mexico, and turned his attention to writing. His writing is strongly visual, an indication of his interest in the visual arts.

As Elizondo notes in his autobiography, Salvadore Elizondo, he found it difficult to enter the Mexican literary scene, perhaps because he was so often far from Mexico, and perhaps because of his unsettled personality. The 1950s and 1960s were difficult times for him, although the most productive; he lived the life of the struggling artist.

Elizondo first gained public attention with his novel Farabeuf; o, La cronica de un instante, a novel about a 19th-century French anatomist, Dr. Farabeuf, and his mistress, whom he is plotting to dissect while she is still alive. The book’s erotic and sadistic themes are heightened by Elizondo’s use of a surrealistic kaleidoscope of images, rather than a traditional cause-and-effect plot.

Before his death, Elizondo had not written as much, but his reputation was undiminished. He wrote, taught part-time, spoke, and was a member of several editorial boards and honor societies. He was also a Professor at UNAM for 25 years and received many international grants, such as the Guggenheim and Rockefeller, and was the recipient of the 1990 national prize of literature.

Elizondo died in Mexico City on March 29, 2006, of cancer. His funeral was held at the palacio de Bellas Artes.

Achievements

• Elizondo is well known largely for his works largely inaccessible and even threatening to the general reading public, and he remains better known as an eccentric figure than as a writer.
  
  Elizondo has produced experimental films, written several books, and contributed to numerous literary journals. He was a professor of literature at the National University in Mexico City.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Contubernio de espejos. Poemas 1960-1964
  • Luchino Visconti y otros textos sobre cine 1963
  • Farabeuf: O la Cronica de un Instante
  • Narda o el verano 1966
  • AUTOBIOGRAFIA PRECOZ 1966
  • El Hipogeo Secreto 1968
  • Cuaderno de escritura 1969
  • El retrato de Zoe y otras mentiras 1969
  • El grafógrafo 1972
  • Contextos
  • El canto de la salamandra: Antología de la literatura brevísima mexicana 1974
  • Miscast o Ha llegado la señora marquesa 1981
  • Camera Lucida 1983
  • LA Luz Que Regresa 1984
  • Elsinore: un cuaderno 1988

• Other Work

  • Estanquillo 1992

Membership

• Mexican Academy of Language

  1980

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• “To read Salvador Elizondo Alcalde is to enter a dark, difficult, seemingly private realm that does not easily yield its secrets. The author is a stubbornly idiosyncratic and disruptive figure in Mexican and Latin-American literature. His works ... are like a stage upon which he reenacts some of the more radical fictional experiments in the Western tradition, or an operating table upon which he dissects philosophical issues such as pleasure versus pain, nature versus culture, and existence in life and in writing.” - Stephen M. Bell

Connections

Salvador Elizondo was twice married. His first wife was Michele Alban, but they divorced. The couple had two children: Mariana and Pia. His second wife was Paulina Lavista, a photographer. They had a son, Pablo.

Father:

Salvador Elizondo Pani

Mother:

Josefina Alcalde y Gonzalez Martinez

Wife:

Michele Alban

Wife:

Paulina Lavista

Daughter:

Mariana Elizondo

Daughter:

Pia Elizondo

Son:

Pablo Elizondo

References

• Ensayos generales sobre el Barroco
• El Papel Del Lector En LA Novela Mexicana Contemporanea Jose Emilio Pacheco Y Salvador Elizondo
• Farabeuf: Estrategias de la inscripción narrativa
• Triptico Mexicano: Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Salvador Elizondo.