Augusto Monterroso en la UNAM

Abstract

This article is an investigation, based on the historical and labor archives of the UNAM, of Augusto Monterroso's professional career at that institution. Monterroso joined UNAM in the 1950s as a proofreader. This job gave him the economic stability to develop a literary work of great formal experimentation, which practiced literary genres of little popularity and diffusion at the time (minification, short stories, essays). His literary capital and his friendship with key figures such as Rubén Bonifaz Nuño helped him to join the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, as a professor of a writing workshop, and the Institute of Philological Research, as a researcher. The university not only provided Monterroso with the economic stability to develop his innovative literary project; it was also the inspiration for his work, so interested in the Western and Latin American tradition.