Santiago Kovadloff

Argentina

© Silvio Fabrikant

 

 

Santiago Kovadloff was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. As a poet and essayist, he is regarded as one of his country’s most outstanding intellectuals. He has repeatedly taken a stand in the press on political and cultural issues, and has also conquered a younger audience with his children’s books.

 

The military dictatorship forced Kovadloff to give up his university career. Today, he lives and works in Buenos Aires as a writer and lecturer in philosophy and literature. Teaching contracts and lecture tours have taken him to Brazil, Mexico, North America, Israel, Portugal, Spain and England. Since 1994 he has been writing for the German and Spanish edition of Lettre International.

In his poems, Kovadloff repeatedly returns to the themes of the Holocaust, man’s alienation, and transience. The essays make evident references to Jewish theosophy and Martin Buber, on whom he wrote his doctoral thesis, and who is mentioned in many of his publications.

In addition to his philosophical works, Kovadloff also writes wonderfully droll books for children. These stories carry children away to a bizarre, surreal world, which inspires them to make new discoveries.

A selection of poems was published in 1998 in Akzente and in Rowohlt Literatur Magazin 42. Essays and poems have been published internationally in several anthologies and magazines.                                                             

Kovadloff has been awarded important prizes for his works; in 1992 he received the First National Prize for Literature.

 

Santiago Kovadloff is a writer whom I very much admire, not only intellectually but also and primarily spiritually and emotionally, because for me poetic thought penetrates deeper than logical thought, and spiritual values rank higher than everything else.

Ernesto Sábato

 

Original editions and rights sold:

 

Essays (selection):

 

El silencio primordial, Buenos Aires: Emecé 1993, 187 p.

Brazil: José Olympio 2003

 

Lo irremediable, Buenos Aires: Emecé 1996, 195 p.

Brazil: José Olympio 2005

 

Ensayos de intimidad, Buenos Aires: Emecé 2002, 220 p.

 

El enigma del sufrimiento, Buenos Aires: Emecé 2008, 283 p.

 

For children:

 

Natalia, queluces y cierto lugar, Buenos Aires: Magisterio del Río de la Plata, 1989, 76 p.

 

Agustina y cada cosa, Buenos Aires: Colihue 1989, 65 p.

 

El tobillo abandonado, Buenos Aires: Colihue 1991, 85 p.

 

República de Evidencia, Buenos Aires: Lugar Editorial 1993, 58 p.