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José
Pablo Feinmann Argentina
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José
Pablo Feinmann was born in Buenos Aires in 1943, where he has always lived and
where he studied and taught philosophy at the University. He
is the author of numerous essays and novels, as well as plays and scripts that
have been successfully brought to the screen.
Whichever
genre Feinmann works in, his writing is always characterised by a concern with
contemporary issues: the relationship between current problems and history; the
tangled links between science and politics; or questions of individual and
collective guilt. Philosophy, for Feinmann, is a daily necessity, and his
approaches to thought have struck such a chord that he has been able to draw an
unusually wide audience: his courses are attended by hundreds of people, and
the prestigious newspaper Página/12, which published a series of weekly
supplements entitled La filosofia y el barro de la historia (“Philosophy
and the Mud of History”) in late 2006/early 2007, had to double the number of
instalments.
In
2008 this outstanding work was published by Planeta in Buenos Aires. Feinmann
takes his readers along on a philosophical journey through the past centuries,
from Descartes via Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, the
Frankfurter School and Sartre to Foucault's postmodernism. The great
Argentinean thinker Feinmann, who courts controversy in his occasional
television appearances, sets out to teach, and does so in a highly serious
manner. Yet he also aims to provide new, critical food for thought of his own.
In his work, Peronismo (“Peronism”), José Pablo Feinmann reveals the most
controversial political phenomenon in Argentina. Peronismo is an impassioned and shocking book as well as a
critical one. Without shying away from polemic or controversy, it shines a
light onto a story as dark as it is vital, as fascinating as it is tragic: it
examines in depth the extreme ban on Peronism and finally unmasks Perón due to
his participation in aberrant events.
A fresco of contemporary Argentine political
culture, a story of life, an intellectual and philosophical biography, a tragic
melodrama, a collection of theatrical conversations; the essay, the dialogue,
the meditation, all the classic genres are here. A genuine portrait
of an era, with parts worthy of a treatise writer and an intense inner
sorrow.
Horacio González
For Feinmann, fiction
represents another, often more sublime way of approaching philosophical issues.
His novel, La sombra de Heidegger
(“Heidegger’s Shadow”) is the concluding volume in a trilogy which also
includes the novels La astucia de la
razón (“The Cunning of Reason”)
and La crítica de las armas (“The
Critique of Weapons”). The focus of La
sombra de Heidegger is the character Dieter Müller, a German professor and
a pupil of Heidegger who had always recognised his master’s intellectual
superiority. But unlike Heidegger – who was appointed Director of Heidelberg
University in 1933 with the support of the Nazi party – he went into exile in
Argentina after the war.
Built up into an involving
and tragic individual fate, this novel casts a critical light on the figure of
one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.
In
his prologue to Feinmann's book, Franco Volpi, the Italian translator of
Heidegger's Being and Time, writes: Great philosophy is dead? Long live philosophy! It is time to return to
it hand in hand with Feinmann, to breathe new life into it. [...] These pages
are by no means neutral: they leave us stronger or weaker, happier or sadder,
more certain or more uncertain – but never unchanged.
The novel Timote reconstructs the
kidnapping and murder of the Argentine general and former president Aramburu by
the Montoneros, a revolutionary Peronist organization. The event is described
graphically in all facets of its significance: as a milestone in Argentine
history, a clash of the generations and a dispute between the ideological camps
fighting over the person of Perón.
Timote is a small town in
the province of Buenos Aires where Aramburu was taken, which became a symbol
for the then beginning Argentine dictatorship. Feinmann deliberately
fictionalises the events, not letting them go uncommented as a reaction to the
dictatorship by the Montoneros, but embedding them within the personal
development of the young men and women involved. The characters’ thoughts,
Aramburu’s interrogation and the group’s communiqués form the matrix of ideas
that Feinmann weaves around the killing. He asks searching questions, looking
behind the superficial factors: who are the Montoneros, who claim to represent
the people? Who were Perón and his wife, who claimed to love the people? Who is
Aramburu, who claims to protect democracy? The answers the author finds are
many and varied.
Timote is going to be performed
by El Teatro Argentino de La Plata as
opera in 2011, with Marcelo Lombardero as stage director and Oscar Golijov as
composer.
Joe
Carter, an LA detective and contract killer, is forced by the mafia to take on
a case. In Carter en New York, the big boss wants to know who his wife
is cheating on him with. Even tough-as-nails Carter is surprised at what he
finds out: She is having an affair with her husband's mistress. During his
investigations, Carter dives into the Broadway world of celebrities and
wannabes, learning about their dark sides and sexual obsessions, but also
seeing past the facades.
Carter
is the hero of a new series, a cynic and a morbid patriot blasting his way
through the world of showbiz, political intrigues and criminality. Feinmann's
sparkling and razor-sharp analysis of US society and its idols pulls out all
the satirical stops.
Original editions and rights sold:
Novels:
Últimos días de la víctima, Buenos Aires: Espasa Calpe 1979; Seix Barral
2006, 259 p.
filmed by Adolfo
Aristarain 1982
France: Albin Michel 1991, Le
Livre de Poche 1993 ● Italy: Feltrinelli 1993 ● Spain: Grup 62
Ni el tiro del final, Buenos Aires: Pomaire 1981, 269 p.
France: Albin Michel 1996 ● Italy:
Giunti 1999
El ejército de ceniza, Buenos Aires: Alianza 1994, 188
p.
France: Albin Michel 1992 ●
Italy: Giunti 1995
Los crímenes de van
Gogh, Buenos Aires: Planeta 1994, 306 p.
France:
Gallimard 1999 ● Germany: Kunstmann 2001 ● Italy: Marcos & Marcos 1998
El mandato, Buenos Aires: Norma 2000,
252 p.
La astucia de la razón, Buenos Aires: Norma 2001, 2011, 301 p.
El cadáver imposible, Buenos Aires: Norma 2003, 152 p.
Germany: Kunstmann 1997 ● Italy: Zanzibar 1993
La crítica de las armas, Buenos
Aires: Norma 2003, 375 p.
Italy: Baldini Castoldi Dalai 2005
La sombra de Heidegger, Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2005, 197 p.
Brasil:
Planeta 2006 ● Italy: Neri Pozza 2007 ● Turkey: Dogan 2009 ● US: Texas Tech University Press
Timote, Buenos Aires: Planeta 2009, 255 p.
Film rights sold, director:
Adolfo Aristarain
US: Texas Tech University
Press
Carter en New York, Buenos
Aires: Planeta 2009, 234 p.
Spain: Sonidos S2 (audiobook) 2010
Carter en Vietnam, Buenos Aires: Planeta 2009, 198 p.
Spain: Sonidos S2 (audiobook) 2010
Essays:
Pasiones de Celuloide. Ensayos y variedades
sobre cine, Buenos Aires: Norma 2000, 403 p.
Escritos imprudentes. El Horizonte y el Abismo, Buenos Aires: Norma 2002, 583 p.
La sangre derramada. Ensayo sobre la
violencia política, Buenos
Aires: Seix Barral 2003, 378 p.
Escritos
imprudentes II. América Latina y el imperio
global, Buenos Aires: Norma
2005, 435 p.
El cine por asalto. Ensayo y variaciones, Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2006, 292 p.
La filosofía y el barro de la historia, Buenos Aires: Página/12 2006-07, Planeta 2008, 797
p.
Peronismo. Filosofía política de una
persistencia argentina, Buenos
Aires: Planeta 2010, 2011, 740 p.
El Flaco. Diálogos
irreverentes con Néstor Kirchner,
Buenos Aires: Planeta 2011, 319 p.
Plays:
Sabor a Freud, Buenos Aires: Norma 2002, 95 p.
Cuestiones con
Ernesto Che Guevara,
Buenos Aires, 77 p.
France:
L’Harmattan 2011-04-13 Théâtre du petit Montparnasse Jan.- April 2011
Scripts:
Últimos días de la víctima
En retirada
Tango Bar
Play murder for me
Cuerpos perdido
Eva Perón.