An award-winning writer born in Buenos Aires in 1940,
Mario Paoletti
became deputy editor of the newspaper El Independiente, in La Rioja Province, in 1960. In 1976, when the armed forces took over government, El Independiente was stormed by troops and many of its staff were arrested. Paoletti spent over four years in various prisons in Argentina, without charge or trial, accused of being an 'ideological delinquent'. In 1980, on his release, he went to live in Toledo, Spain, where he still lives.
Colonel Fazzoletto's barbecue will be included in Hand in Hand Alongside the Tracks — Argentine Stories, to be published by Constable, London, in February 1992.
