Translation Rights TQE / Authors / Bellatin, Mario

Mario Bellatin was born in Mexico, in 1960. His work first became public in Peru, where it has been widely diffused and where several of his novels of his have been adapted to the stage. After studying cinematography in Cuba, he settled in Mexico, where he published Efecto invernadero (Greenhouse Effect), 1996, a new version of Damas Chinas (Chinese Chequers), published by Síntoma in 1998, and Poeta ciego (Blind Poet), considered to be the most relevant novel of 2001 according to the literary critic Christian Domínguez. He is also author of Salón de belleza -Beauty Salon – (1999 in Mexico, 2000 in Spain) which had a stunning reception in France (finalist to the Medicis Prize for best foreign novel), and which Alfredo Bryce Echenique had already praised when, referring also to Canon Perpetuo – Perpetual Canon (1993) and Mujeres de sal –Salt Women (1986), he stated that Bellatin’s novels «always work, they are efficient and earnest». For Sergio Pitol, «the great lesson Bellatin offers us in returning to his native country is that narrative cannot persist without imagination and rigour. With him among us the novel becomes again a major genre.»