SABATO, ERNESTO

born June 24, 1911, Rojas, Arg. Argentine novelist, journalist, and essayist. Educated as a physicist and mathematician, he attended the National University of La Plata (192936), where he received his doctorate in physics in 1937, and studied at the Curie Laboratory in Paris (1938) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1939). He returned to Argentina in 1940. From 1940 to 1945 he taught theoretical physics at the National University of La Plata and at a normal school in Buenos Aires. He began to contribute articles to the literary section of La Nacin, one of Argentina's leading newspapers, and he was removed from his teaching post in 1945 for his opposition to the Pern government. Uno y el universo (1945; One and the Universe), a series of aphorisms, statements, and personal observations by Sbato on diverse philosophical, social, and political matters, was his first literary success. The novel El tnel (1948; The Tunnel; Eng. trans., The Outsider) won Sbato national and international fame. The protagonist of the novel is a typical Existential antihero who is unable to communicate with anyone. Faced with the absurdity of the human condition, he withdraws within himself. After the fall of Pern in 1955, Sbato published El otro rostro del peronismo (1956; The Other Face of Peronism), which is an attempt to study the historical and political causes of the violence and unrest of Pern's rule. The essay El caso Sbato (1956; The Sbato Case) is a plea for reconciliation of Peronist and anti-Peronist forces. His second novel, Sobre hroes y tumbas (1961; On Heroes and Tombs), is a penetrating psychological study of man, interwoven with philosophical ideas and observations previously treated in his essays. Tres aproximaciones a la literatura de nuestro tiempo (1968; Three Approximations to the Literature of Our Times) are critical literary essays that deal specifically with the works of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jorge Luis Borges, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The novel Abaddn el exterminador (1974, corrected and revised, 1978; Abaddn the Exterminator) contains the ironic statements on literature, art, philosophy, and the excesses of rationalism that characterize his work. Sbato in 1984 received the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, Hispanic literature's most prestigious award. The award followed the publication in Spain of the Sbato Report (Nunca ms; an investigation of human-rights violations in Argentina), of which Sbato was the principal author.