Gabriel Casaccia

Gabriel Casaccia Bibolini
Born	April 20, 1907(1907-04-20) Asunción, Paraguay
Died	November 24, 1980(1980-11-24) (aged 73) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, playwriter
Genres	Modern Realism
Notable work(s)	La Babosa, La Llaga

Gabriel Casaccia Bibolini (April 20, 1907—November 24, 1980) was a Paraguayan novelist. He is widely considered by critics to be the founder of modern literature in Paraguay. Augusto Roa Bastos, Paraguay's most famous novelist says, “Gabriel Casaccia is the founder of modern Paraguayan narrative, which gives, in good measure, a fundamental character to all of his work and, to its author, the unusual merit of having launched the genre in a country which was fictionally unknown.”

Life

He was born in Asunción to Benigno Casaccia and Margarita Bibolini and studied at the Colegio Nacional de la Capital. He finished his Law studies at the Law School of the Universidad Nacional de Asuncion and started work as a journalist, writing for El Liberal, El Diario and several other magazines in Asunción, following which he decided to devote himself entirely to fiction. During his first 17 years of literary production he wrote under both of his family names as "Benigno Casaccia Bibolini". Later on, he adopted the name of Gabriel Casaccia, under which name his best known works were produced. In his youth, he was politically active for a short period when he moved to Argentina, living first in Posadas, then in Buenos Aires.

He was married to an Argentinian named Carmen Dora Parola. He died in Buenos Aires, on November 24, 1980.

Critical commentary

Roque Vallejos, poet and researcher, says: ”no one since Rafael Barrett...has highlighted Paraguayan reality so graphically. We refer to that human experience that has been happening in Paraguay for more than four centuries and to which, many times, the social order has seen fit to refer to as “fiction”, but whose potent force in the life of the people cannot be denied.”

"I don't believe that the national reality is an enigma or a mystery”, Casaccia says in a letter to the author of this essay, listing several traits whose negations do not exclude their existing together: ”sentimentality for the past”;” dissatisfaction for the present”; "falsifying history”; “slumbering narcissism”, “lack of national heroes”, “unfamiliarity with freedom”. “All of these and much more,"- Casaccia says, "is our reality”….It has been said that Casaccia is the best representative of the existentialist literature of our country…This type of anti-literature that Casaccia writes is the least rhetorical and the most effective means to unveil reality…”

Hugo Rodríguez-Alcala, in his book History of Paraguayan Literature(1971) writes about Casaccia and “La Babosa” (The Slug): ”...an artist of exquisite sensibility, obsessed by memories of his childhood and adolescence...long years spent in a small town 30 kilometers from Asunción. It is a quiet place, by a beautiful lake, (Ypacaraí Lake). The houses have large corridors with patios and gardens populated by leafy trees, standing in silence like an invitation to a quiet and peaceful life. How is he going to evoke images of this town-Areguá? Will it be an idyllic place to which nostalgic feelings gave charm...a rustic beauty? None of this. Maybe, in a kind of reverse sentimentalism, Casaccia will convert it to a scenario of the things he most hates, and not the ones he most loves. There we find teeming, impoverished creatures; restless and crude, wallowing in the banalities of a sordid existence, empty, inauthentic. The seven deadly sins have incarnated their universal essence in Areguá, in its most potent Paraguayan form.…In the nation which adores its heroes, the anti-hero emerged in “ La Babosa”. It will be said that Casaccia lived in a time when literary anti-heroes proliferated…that is granted. But still, we shouldn't forget the basic facts aforementioned: in our author there is an unquestionable reaction against his nation's way of feeling and expressing life , and this reaction acquires its own original character in the concrete circumstances described. All in all, this anti-idealistic and anti-sentimental fury responds directly to an idealistic and sentimental mania which we have to unmask”.

Raul Amaral, a critic of the rich history of twentieth-century Paraguayan culture, in the Introduction to Casaccia's posthumously published novel “Los Huertas” states: ”Something important must be remembered so as not to continue repeating the same mistakes, derived from a negative and incomplete vision. Casaccia does not proceed with the spiritual demolition of Areguá (and much less of all Paraguay) in his narrative, but limits himself to social groups, people and facts rooted in a problem (one or several) that has undoubtedly universal roots. The sorrow, the evil, the malice, do not exclusively reflect nations or places, but are also common to people who live in these particular situations in any part of this world.”

Works

His total literary production includes seven novels, two collections of short-stories and a play. Ordered chronologically, his novels are: “Hombres y Mujeres Fantoches” (1930), “Mario Pareda”(1939),”La Babosa"(1952), “La Llaga” (1963),”Los Exiliados”(1966), “Los Herederos” (1975) y “Los Huertas” (1981), published posthumously. The short-story collections are “El Guajhu”(1938) and ”El Pozo”(1947). The play “El Bandolero” was published in 1932.

See also

• Diccionario Biográfico "FORJADORES DEL PARAGUAY", Primera Edicción Enero de 2000. Distribuidora Quevedo de Ediciones. Buenos Aires, Argentina.

External links

• El Cabildo
• Brief Biography of Casaccia
• Casaccia centenary