Jose Agustin

José Agustín was a Mexican novelist, short story writer, essayist and screenwriter, who published under the pen name José Agustín. He was considered one of the most influential and prolific Mexican writers of the second half of the 20th century. He was educated at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura. He was a leader of the Onda literature, a youth movement sympathetic to rock music and drug culture, and his fiction reflects this involvement. His first novel, La tumba (The Tomb), published when he was 20, is told from a teenager's viewpoint. His most famous work, De perfil (Profile View), is a fast and detailed view of three days in the main character's life, showing stylistic similarities to James Joyce's work. He also made use of the stream of consciousness technique and the free indirect discourse. He taught at the University of Denver, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of New Mexico. He received several awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Premio Nacional de Literatura Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes. He wrote more than 20 books, including novels, short stories, essays, translations and screenplays. He died of a heart attack in Cuautla, Morelos, on 16 January 2024, at the age of 79.