AGUSTN, JOS

born Aug. 19, 1944, Acapulco, Guerrero, Mex. in full Jos Agustn Ramrez Mexican novelist whose prolific writings, reflecting an urban sensibility and the modern culture of youth, highlight urban violence and decay. Agustn was educated at National Autonomous University of Mexico and at Centro Mexicano de Escritores. He was a leader of Onda, a youth movement sympathetic to rock music and drug culture, and his fiction reflects this involvement. His first novel, La tumba (1964; The Tomb), published when he was 20, is told from a teenager's viewpoint. Subsequent works include the prizewinning play Crculo vicioso (1974; Vicious Circle) and the award-winning novel Ciudades desiertas (1982; Deserted Cities). In 1985 Agustn published an autobiography, El rock de la crcel (Jailhouse Rock); a collection of essays, La nueva msica clsica (The New Classical Music); and the novels Ah viene la plaga (Here Comes the Plague) and Furor matutino (Morning Fury). The novel Cerca del fuego (1986; Near the Fire) is a mordantly humorous indictment of life in Mexico City, told by an amnesiac after six years' absence from the city. In 1994 Agustn published El viejo y el mar, a translation of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.