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Augusto Monterroso

By Robert Swartwood on September 7, 2009

This is a long shot, I know, but would anyone have any idea on how to get in contact with Augusto Monterroso’s estate? Among other things, he’s noted for writing (at the time) the shortest short story ever called “The Dinosaur.” Months ago I tried contacting Ediciones ERA, the publisher who most recently released his story collection Obras Completas (y otros cuentos) — e-mailed them first in English (didn’t hear anything) and then in Spanish (a friend helped translate) and still never heard anything. I’d really like to include his story in the anthology, and while anybody can simply find the story pretty much anywhere online, to print it I of course need permission, and I can only get that from his estate.

On the off-chance anybody has information, please e-mail me at robert (at) robertswartwood (dot) com. Thanks!

Posted in | 5 Responses

  • http://www.womenofmystery.net Kathleen Ryan

    I don’t know if you’ve tried this avenue yet: http://www.bgagency.it/Site/Pages/Document.aspx?document=39

    It’s a PDF for “Literary Fiction” and it lists the following under the Author’s name, and the next pages list other authors and rights sold, etc.

    International Editors’ Co. – Agencia Literaria
    Provenza, 276, 1º — 08008 Barcelona — SPAIN
    Maru de Montserrat, ieco@internationaleditors.com
    T. (+34) 93 215-8812 — F. (+34) 93 487-3583

    I’ve sent an email to my sister in law who is a Public Administrator to see if she has any knowledge of how to reach an author’s estate. I’ll keep you posted.

    Good luck!
    Kathy

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  • Robert Swartwood

    This is great, Kathy, thanks! I guess it wouldn’t hurt to send an e-mail to that address … :-)

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  • http://www.womenofmystery.net Kathleen Ryan

    Hi Robert,
    My sister-in-law said that Augusto’s wife is/was Barbara Jacobs, maybe she’s a source you could track down; or, you could contact the American consulate in Mexico (since he died in Mexico City), or the Mexican consulate in Manhattan. Apparently, probate info is private in Mexico, unlike here in the U.S.
    Also, Princeton University is in possession of Augusto’s writings. Check out this link to Princeton re: Augusto Monterroso:
    http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/getEad?eadid=C1109&kw=
    Good luck in your quest…
    If I learn any more, I’ll pass it along.
    Best,
    Kathy

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  • Jill Weinberger

    I was going to suggest tracking down Barbara Jacobs as well. She’s an author in her own right who is still publishing and she has remained active on the interview/lecture circuit in recent years, so if you scope out Amazon for the most recent edition of her latest work, you should be able to find her current publisher and/or literary agent. (She is a Mexican author, so works translated into English might have a different publisher, but sooner or later, I should think you’d be able to find some way of contacting her via this avenue.)

    Will the anthology be including Hemmingway’s famous six-word story as well? Side note: I was once telling my mom about the Hemmingway story — “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn,” and explaining how wonderful it was to be able to get so much sadness and poignance from six little words, and she said, “Maybe it was just a big huge baby who didn’t fit into the infant sizes. You were gigantic, and went straight to the three-to-six-month clothes, and I had to give all sorts of stuff away that you were never small enough to wear.” Heh. I guess that’s another example of how even the smallest piece of literature can say different things to different people. I see tragedy; my mom sees a big giant baby.

    Hope the Jacobs lead pans out! Good luck.

    Jill

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  • Robert Swartwood

    Thanks, Jill. I’d tried the Barbara Jacobs route a few weeks back but didn’t find much for some reason. Maybe I can try it again. But the University of Texas Press published one of Augusto’s collections years back. I e-mailed them asking about his estate and they responded with an e-mail address of his literary manager in Spain, who I immediately e-mailed. So fingers crossed.

    And the problem with the Hemingway six-worder is that it’s not actually contributed to Hemingway anywhere. One Hemingway scholar admitted that the six-word story is the most asked question, but nobody has been able to find it anywhere actually written down and attributed to him. It is, as she said, apocryphal. However, despite that, I’m quite sure Hemingway did write it and plan to use it as the starting off point of the introduction. After all, he is the granddaddy of hint fiction :-)

    Speaking of reading that story different ways, when I did my student teaching and used the story as an example, one student said maybe the baby was born without feet! Again, there really is no right or wrong answer …

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