by Tomás Eloy Martínez

Born in Argentina in 1934, Tomás Eloy Martínez immigrated to the United States in 1983. He had been forced to leave Argentina by President Isabel Perón’s government and had lived in exile in Venezuela for eight years, continuing to do so because of Argentina’s military dictatorship. A journalist and writer, Martínez’s many Spanish-language nonfiction books include Sagrado (1969), La pasión según Trelew (1973), Lugar común la muerte (1979), and Las memorias del general (1996). Most of these deal with Argentine history and/or Peronism in some form. To date, Martínez has published three works of fiction: La novela de Perón (translated into English as The Peron Novel in 1987); La mano del amo (1991; The Hand of the Master), and Santa Evita (retained this title—which means “Saint Evita”—in the English translation). According to Mart...