Ernesto Sábato

Ernesto Sábato was born in 1911, in the town of Rojas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Sábato is a novelist and essayist whose work is characterized by deep intellectual content on the difficult separations between good and evil. He obtained his doctorate in physics and studied philosophy in the University of La Plata.

In 1933 he was elected as Secretary General of the Communist Youth and began to dictate "free courses" of Marxism-Communism. At these courses he met a 17 year old student called Matilde Kusminsky-Richter, who eventually became his wife and turned out to be a his main supporter in times of discouragement and pessimism that would hunt him along all his career.

After working in the physics world for approximately ten years he decided to devote exclusively to painting, literature and education. He published several articles in "La Nación" newspaper attacking Peron's regime, and was consequently forced to leave education and forced him to concentrate in his other passion: writing. During 1945 he wrote the book "Uno y el Universo" (One and the Universe), a collection of political and philosophical articles in which he censored the neutral morality of the science inherited from the 19th century. He continued writing essays and books for the years to come.
 

In 1982, after the Malvinas war (Falklands war), the overthrow of the military regime and the beginning of the democracy; Ernesto Sábato was designated President of the CONADE; and as a consequence of the work of this agency, the book "Nunca Más", also known as "Report Sábato" (Sabato Report) was published. This book describes the atrocities committed during the military regime and where "disappearances" of thousands of people are analyzed.

He received numerous awards by Universities around the country and was named illustrious citizen in most cities of Argentina. In 1984 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize and Gabriela Mistral Prize by the Organization of the American States in Washington; and in 1999, he published his memoirs titled  "Antes del Fin" (Before the End).

At present, Ernesto Sábato lives in Santos Lugares, province of Buenos Aires, where he devotes his time exclusively to painting, since, by medical prescription, he is not able to read and write