Jorge Musto is a member of ‘the second Marcha generation’ of writers and critics associated with the influential cultural review published in Montevideo between 1939 and 1973, when it was prohibited by the military regime which took power that year (Index 4/1974 and 2/1979). Before turning to full-time writing in the mid 1960s, Sr Musto worked as an actor and director with the wellknown experimental theatre group El Galpón (Index 2/1977 and 2/1979). In 1965 his first novel, Un largo silencio (‘A Long Silence’) was published in Montevideo, followed in the years before his exile by three further novels, one of which won the 1967 Concurso Hispanoamericano de Novela Prize (awarded in Santiago de Chile), and a collection of short stories. It was during this period that he worked as a journalist on the literary pages of Marcha.

In April 1972, Jorge Musto was detained by the Uruguayan army, a year before the military took complete power, but at a time of intensifying operations against the Tupamaros guerrillas and the opposition in general. A week later a civil judge found him innocent of all charges. He was nevertheless detained by the military for a further year, including months in solitary confinement and a period of interrogation with torture. In March 1973 he was released, on condition that he stayed within the confines of the capital and reported weekly to an army barracks. In July he left Uruguay secretly, finally taking refuge in Paris, where he now works as a translator for a Catholic group attached to UNESCO. He has published one novel and several translations since his exile.

In a forthcoming issue, Index will publish an interview with Jorge Musto conducted recently in Paris by our Latin America researcher.

Pale browns and yellows

Abstract