Tomás Eloy Martínez (July 16, 1934 – January 31, 2010) was an Argentine ournalist and writerborn in Tucumán, Argentina. He studied Spanish and Latin American Literature in Universidad de Tucumán and got his MA in l’Université de Paris. He was awarded with Honorary PhD by seven universities in Latin America and Europe.
Since 1995 is Distinguished Professor and Director of Latin American Program at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Since 2000 is also the Director of the Center for Hemispheric Studies. The same institution appointed him in February 2000 as Writer in Residence.
From 1984 to 1987 was Professor of Latin American Literature at University of Maryland, and from 1980 to 2003 has delivered lectures and seminars in dozens of American and European universities, including Harvard, Texas at Austin, Yale, Princeton, Washington at Seattle, SUNY at Buffalo, NYU, Emory, Duke, Freie Universitat in Berlin, UPenn, Penn State and many others.
He was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington DC, and he won a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
He has written four books of essays, five novels, two books of journalism and one collection of short stories. The essays are: Estructuras del cine argentino (1961), Retrato del artista enmascarado. The Poetry of Ramos Sucre (1981), El sueño argentino (1999) and Réquiem por un país perdido (2003). His journalistic books: La pasión según Trelew (1973 and 1996) and Las memorias del General (1996). His short stories’ collection: Lugar común la muerte (1979, reissued 1998). His novels: Sagrado (1967 and 1969), The Perón Novel (1985, translated to 12 languages), La mano del amo (1991, translated to four languages), Santa Evita (1995, translated to 36 languages: the Argentinian most translated book) and El vuelo de la reina (2002), which won the Alfaguara International Novel Award. That book was launched simultaneously in Spanish and Portuguese and was translated to 17 languages (some translations in progress). In September 2004, London’s Bloomsbury will publish his novel The Tango Singer. The last novel is Purgatory (2008)
Tomás Eloy Martínez was executive editor of the Argentine’s weekly magazines Primera Plana and Panorama (in Buenos Aires), editor of La Opinión (Buenos Aires), El Nacional (Caracas) and Página 12 (Buenos Aires). He founded and was executive editor of El Diario de Caracas. Since 1995 he is columnist of The New York Times Syndicate, La Nación, Buenos Aires and El País, Madrid