Edgar Brau
Edgar Brau was born in Argentina. He engaged in different occupations: he was an actor, a theater director, a painter of icons, and a photographer until he completely devoted himself to writing literature. His literary work includes novels, short stories, poetry, and plays.
By mid-2000, his complete work in prose was chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts (U.S.A.) to be translated into English by Donald A. Yates, the first American translator and editor of Jorge Luis Borges.
Several of his works were published in American magazines: The Literary Review, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Antioch Review, Two Lines, Nimrod, The Paris Review, Words Without Borders, and others.
In the U.S.A., his literary work is considered to be on the same level as that of Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges. Writer and journalist Esteban Peicovich considers him "the secret king of contemporary Argentine literature". And for Donald A. Yates, the play “Faust” and the novel “Gulliver’s Craft” establish Brau as the most prominent author in contemporary Argentine literature
His main prose works are "The Poem and Other Stories" (ten short stories); the novel “El comediante” (the protagonist, a brilliant actor and director, is finally pushed —destiny, ambition of infinity?— to a very particular scenario: a police station, where, through improvised interpretations, he will have to get the detainees to confess their crimes to spare them from the usual torture); “Faust” a play in which the character is now a bright biologist at Princeton, who, while considering the possibility of destroying the formula he has just discovered (which will enable man to live for a thousand years) is interrupted by the devil Mephistopheles, who has the mission of preventing that destruction (synopsis and content on YouTube); “The Golem Project” (in an unspecified future the Israelis manage to bring Hitler back to life with his memory intact - published by The Antioch Review); “Argentine Suite” (four stories about the last Argentine military dictatorship, the Dirty War); the novella “Casablanca” (Bogart’s and Bergman’s Casablanca recreated in the Argentine pampas —see Wikipedia), and the novel “Gulliver's Craft”, a satyrical work in which Swift's character narrates a supposed fifth voyage (in 1722), to the coast of Patagonia (synopsis and content on YouTube and LinkedIn).
In poetry, the most important works are "Woodstock" (three-part poem about the famous music festival); “Like Psalms” (twenty-six poems that make up a metaphysical journey of questions and uncertainties, but also of wonder and confidence), and “Tiresias' Dream” (ten meditations by the famous Theban soothsayer on the great Western metaphysical themes).
In 2014, after publishing "Gulliver's Craft", Edgar Brau decided to give up writing and gave literature lessons to Rabito, a homeless cat (YouTube).
Instagram: edgar_brau
