Carlos Mastronardi

Who was Carlos Mastronardi?

Carlos Mastronardi was an Argentine journalist, poet, and translator. His works included Luz de provincia, Tierra amanecida, Conocimiento de la noche, and Tratado de la pena. His non-fiction Valéry o la infinitud del método won the Buenos Aires Municipal Prize for Literature. Other important works of non-fiction included Formas de la realidad nacional and Memorias de un Provinciano. Some of his journalism was published posthumously as Cuadernos de vivir y pensar.

As a translator, Mastronardi was mainly known for translating the French Symbolist poets into Spanish. As a poet, although identified personally with the avant-garde of his time, he wrote largely in traditional forms rather than free verse, and rejected what he viewed as his contemporaries' excessive use of metaphor.

Born in Gualeguay, Entre Ríos Province, Mastronardi came to Buenos Aires at the age of 19. There he became a member of the Martín Fierro group and an intimate of Jorge Luis Borges, although they disagreed strongly about questions about aesthetics and poetry. Mastronardi figures as a minor character in Borges's short story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.