Guido, Beatriz (1925–1988)

Beatriz Guido (b. 1925; d. 4 March 1988), Argentine writer. Guido's fiction exemplifies the literary production of Argentina during the 1950s, which was deeply influenced by a postwar European sensibility of ethical despair and the imperative to manifest a social commitment, especially in the creation of fictional characters obliged to participate as fully conscious individuals in the dirty business of life. Many Argentine writers, including Guido, manifested their adherence to this imperative by addressing the historical upheaval produced in their country first by Peronism and then by the rabid reaction to it by the traditionalist oligarchy. A Rosario native, Guido was superbly skillful in portraying the alternately oblivious and cynical moral corruption at the core of the power elite (more the landed gentry than the nouveaux-riches capitalists who attracted the attention of a subsequent generation). Perhaps her two best works are her first, La casa del ángel (1954; The House of the Angel, 1957), of interest from a feminist perspective because of the dominant motif of the psychosexual abuse of the young female protagonist, Ana, and El incendio y las vísperas (1964; End of a Day, 1966), which centers on the torching in April 1953 by Peronista hoodlums of the Jockey Club, a legendary oligarchic bastion in Buenos Aires. The novel uses this event as an axis to portray the intersecting conflicts of two Peronista opponents: the decadent oligarchy and the emerging revolutionary left. Guido, whose novels provoked many outraged responses, saw several of her works filmed by her husband, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, with whom she collaborated on numerous cinematographic projects.

See alsoCinema: From the Silent Film to 1990; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arturo Jauretche, El medio pelo en la sociedad argentina (1966), pp. 193-216.

Fernando Pedro Alonso and Arturo Rezzano, Novela y sociedad argentinas (1971), pp. 184-193.

Beatriz Guido, ¿Quién le teme a mis temas? (1977).

Nora De Marval De McNair, "Adolescencia y hechizo en el mundo literario de Beatriz Guido: Tres variaciones en torno a un mismo tema," in Círculo 10 (1981): 29-40.

José A. Mahieu, "Beatriz Guido: Las dos escrituras," in Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, no. 437 (1986): 153-168.

Additional Bibliography

Flawiá de Fernández, Nilda María. Voces y espacios de escritura: Argentina, 1950–1970. San Miguel de Tucumán: Instituto Interdisciplinario de Literaturas Argentina y Comparadas, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, 2001.

Mucci, Cristina. Divina Beatrice: Una biografía de la escritora Beatriz Guido. Buenos Aires: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2002.

                                    David William Foster