Three letters from the black box and a recovered tale

Abstract

Among a consignment of papers referring to Antonio Di Benedetto are photocopies of three letters sent to the Buenos Aires critic Luis Emilio Soto in the 1950s to ask him to write a prologue for his book Declinación y Ángel (1958). The volume, published by the Public Library General San Martín in Mendoza, gives concrete form to his essays on experimental literature and appears in the context of an intense provincial cultural life. The search for the antecedents of the author’s relationship with the critic led to findings in the pages of the newspaper Los Andes and in an old issue of the magazine Versión, which was also published by the library. At that time and through those relationships and publications, the beginning of the long relationship with Jorge Luis Borges is glimpsed, which gives rise to the invitation to Di Benedetto to speak at the National Library of Buenos Aires on fantastic literature in 1958. Finally, the research leads to an almost forgotten story in the magazine Versión which Di Benedetto would rescue, with corrections, in Cuentos del exilio (Madrid, 1983). In the appendices, the letters and the story are recovered.