Silvina Ocampo (28 July 1903 – 14 December 1993) was an Argentine short story writer, poet, and artist. Ocampo's friend and collaborator Jorge Luis Borges called Ocampo "one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language, whether on this side of the ocean or on the other." Her first book was Viaje olvidado (1937), translated as Forgotten Journey (2019), and her final piece was Las repeticiones, published posthumously in 2006.
Before establishing herself as a writer, Ocampo was a visual artist.Cobas Carral, Andrea. "Modos de refundarse. Los casos de Borges, Bioy y Silvina Ocampo" en María Pia López (comp.) La década infame y los escritores suicidas. Buenos Aires, Paradiso, 2007: 1. She studied painting and drawing in Paris where she met, in 1920, Fernand Léger and Giorgio de Chirico, forerunners of surrealism.Ocampo, Silvina. "Prólogo" Antología: Cuentos De La "nena Terrible" Ed. Patricia Nisbet Klingenberg. Doral, FL: Stockcero, 2013. xiv
She received, among other awards, the Municipal Prize for Literature in 1954 and the National Poetry Prize in 1962.
Personal life Ocampo was born to a wealthy family in Buenos Aires, the youngest of six daughters (Victoria, Angélica, Francisca, Rosa, Clara María, and Silvina) of Manuel Silvio Cecilio Ocampo and Ramona Aguirre Herrera. Her family resided on the Canary Islands before moving to Argentina in the mid-19th century. Ocampo was the sister of Victoria Ocampo, the founder and editor of the prestigious Argentine journal Sur.
Ocampo was educated at home by tutors and in Paris. Her family belonged to the upper bourgeoisie, a fact that allowed her to have a very complete education. She had three governesses (one French and two English), a Spanish teacher, and an Italian teacher. Because of this, the six sisters learned to read in English and French before Spanish.Carraud, Claudio (14 December 2009). "Silvina Ocampo: su vida y su obra es un enigma que vale la pena descifrar". Análisis digital. This trilingual training would later influence Ocampo's writing, according to Ocampo herself.
Her ancestors belonged to the Argentine aristocracy and owned extensive lands. Her great-great-great-great-grandfather, José de Ocampo, was governor of Cuzco before moving to Virreinato del Río de la Plata. Manuel José de Ocampo (her great-great-great-grandfather) was one of the first governors when independence was declared. Her great-grandfather Manuel José de Ocampo y González was a politician and candidate for president of the country. He was also a friend of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. Her grandfather, Manuel Anselmo Ocampo, was a rancher."Villa María, fundada por orden del patrón Ocampo". El diario del centro del país. 24 September 2017. Retrieved 2 May 2018. Another of her ancestors was Domingo Martinez de Irala, conqueror of Asunción and future governor of Río de la Plata and Paraguay. The brother of Ocampo's great-great-great-grandmother, Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, was Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. Another distant relative is Juan Manuel de Rosas who was the main leader until 1852."El temperamento sanguíneo de los Ocampo". Clarín. 3 July 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
Her mother, Ramona Máxima Aguirre, was one of eight children. She enjoyed gardening and playing the violin. Her family was of Creole origins and religious. Her father, Manuel Silvio Cecilio Ocampo Regueira, was born in 1860 and was an architect. He was one of nine children and had a conservative character.
In winter, Ocampo visited her great-grandfather, who lived nearby, daily. During the summer, her family lived in a villa in San Isidro, a modern house that in its time had electricity and running water. Currently, this house (Villa Ocampo) is a UNESCO site and recognized as a historical monument. In the summer, she took classes on the second floor, where she learned the fundamentals that would later help her become a writer.
The critic Patricia Nisbet Klingenberg maintains, however, that as a child Ocampo "lived a lonely existence, relieved primarily by the companionship of various household workers [. . . ] This, then, is the place from which her works emerge, from memory and identification with those identified as other."
Two events that had a significant impact on Ocampo in her youth were the marriage of her sister Victoria and the death of her sister Clara. She stated that Victoria's marriage had taken away her youth: "Hubo un episodio de mi niñez que marcó mucho nuestra relación. Victoria me quitó la niñera que yo más quería, la que más me cuidó, la que más me mimó: Fanni. Ella me quería a mí más que a nadie. Fanni sabía que yo la adoraba, pero cuando Victoria se casó y se la llevó con ella nadie se atrevió a oponérsele" [There was an episode from my childhood that strongly marked our relationship. Victoria took away the nanny that I loved the most, the one who cared for me the most, the one who pampered me the most: Fanni. She loved me more than anyone else. Fanni knew I adored her, but when Victoria married and took her with her, no one dared to oppose her]. She also stated that she began to hate socializing once Clara died.
In 1908, Ocampo traveled to Europe for the first time with her family. Later she studied drawing in Paris with Giorgio de Chirico and Fernand Léger. Among her friends was the Italian writer Italo Calvino, who prefaced her stories. Back in Buenos Aires, she worked on painting with Norah Borges and María Rosa Oliver. She held various exhibitions, both individual and collective. When Victoria founded the magazine Sur in 1931, which published articles and texts by many important writers, philosophers, and intellectuals of the 20th century, Ocampo was part of the founding group. However, like Borges and Bioy Casares, she did not have a prominent role in the decisions about the content to be published, which was a task performed by Victoria and José Bianco.Pichon Riviere, Marcelo (22 August 1999). El tercer hombre. Revista Ñ. Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
In 1934, Ocampo met her future husband, the Argentine author Adolfo Bioy Casares. They married in 1940. The relationship between the two was complex, and Bioy openly had lovers. Some authors have described Ocampo as a victim, but others, such as Ernesto Montequin, have rejected this portrait: "Eso la pone en un lugar de minusválida. La relación con Bioy fue muy compleja; ella tuvo una vida amorosa bastante plena [. . .] La relación con Bioy podía hacerla sufrir, pero también la inspiraba" [That puts her in a handicapped place. The relationship with Bioy was very complex; she had a fairly full love life [. . . ] The relationship with Bioy Casares could make her suffer, but it also inspired her].
Ocampo and Bioy remained together until her death, despite her husband's frequent infidelities.Dujovne Ortiz, Alicia (February 6, 2005). Adolfo Bioy Casares y Silvina Ocampo, la extraña pareja. La Nación. In 1954, Bioy's extramarital daughter, Marta, was born. Ocampo adopted Marta and raised her as her own.Garzón, Raquel (September 14, 2014). La herencia de Bioy: amores secretos y muertes en un juicio de película. Clarín. Marta Bioy Ocampo died in an automobile accident shortly after Ocampo's own death. Bioy Casares's son by another mistress, Fabián Bioy, later won a lawsuit for the right to the estates of Ocampo and Bioy Casares; Fabián Bioy died in 2006.
Career and literary works Ocampo began her career as a short story writer in 1936. Ocampo published her first book of short stories, Viaje olvidado, in 1937, followed by three books of poetry: Enumeración de la patria, Espacios métricos, and Los sonetos del jardín. She was a prolific writer, producing more than 175 pieces of fiction during one forty-year period.
Ocampo frequently collaborated with other writers. She wrote Los que aman, odian ("Those Who Love, Hate") with Bioy Casares in 1946, and with J. R. Wilcock she published the theatrical work Los Traidores in 1956. With Borges and Bioy Casares, Ocampo co-authored the celebrated Antología de la literatura fantástica in 1940, and also the Antología poética Argentina in 1941.
Before turning to writing, Ocampo had studied painting in Paris under the cubist Fernand Léger and proto-surrealist Giorgio de Chirico. Ocampo did not abandon her artistic training; she produced illustrations for Borges' poetry and painted throughout her life. Borges perceived a connection between Ocampo's painting and poetry, writing that "like Rosetti and Blake, Silvina has come to poetry by the luminous paths of drawing and painting, and the immediacy and certainty of the visual image persist in her written pages."
Unpublished works by Ocampo are part of the Silvina Ocampo Collection at the University of Notre Dame.
Ocampo was awarded Argentina's National Prize for Poetry in 1962, among other literary awards.
First publications Ocampo published her first book of short stories, Viaje olvidado, in 1937. Most of the stories do not exceed two pages in length. The book was reviewed by Victoria Ocampo in Sur, where she remarked on the autobiographical aspects of the stories and reproached her sister for having "distorted" those childhood memories.Victoria Ocampo, "Viaje olvidado", Sur n° 7, 1937. Sur played a foundational role in the life of Ocampo, facilitating her connections with Borges, Bioy, Wilcock, and others in her circle. It was in this magazine where the first stories, poems, and translations of Ocampo appeared.
Despite the initial negative reviews of Viaje olvidado, the book came to be considered a fundamental text within the writer's collection of works, introducing readers to the features and themes that would characterize her future works. A few years later, Ocampo collaborated with Borges and Bioy Casares in the preparation of two anthologies: Antología de la literatura fantástica (1940), with a prologue by Bioy, and Antología poética Argentina (1941). In 1942, she introduced her first two books of poetry, Enumeración de la Patria and Espacios métricos. From then on, she alternated writing narratives with poetry.
In 1948, she published Autobiografía de Irene, stories where she shows a greater fluency in writing and a greater influence of Borges and Bioy appears.Podlubne, Judith (2009). "Autobiografía de Irene: El desvío formalista de Silvina Ocampo". Academic Report . Retrieved 20 May 2018 . Despite this, the book did not have much impact at the time of its appearance. Two years earlier she had written a crime novel with Bioy Casares, Los que aman, odian.
After several years of publishing only poetry (Los sonetos del jardín, Poemas de amor desesperado, Los nombres, which won the National Poetry Prize) she returned to writing stories in 1959 with La furia, with which she finally obtained some recognition. La furia is often considered the point in which Ocampo reached the fullness of her style.
The 1960s and 70s Ocampo was somewhat less active in terms of editorial presence in the 1960s, as she only published the volume of short stories, Las invitadas (1961), and the poetry book, Lo amargo por dulce (1962). In contrast, she was somewhat more fruitful during the 1970s. During these years, Ocampo published the poems Amarillo celeste, Árboles de Buenos Aires, and Canto escolar. She also published the story Los días de la noche and a series of children's stories: El cofre volante, El tobogán, El caballo alado, and La naranja maravillosa.
Last years and posthumous publications