Mike Wilson (writer, born 1974)

American-Argentine writer based in Chile (born 1974)

Mike Wilson

Born	Michael James Wilson 1974 (age 49–50) St. Louis, Missouri
Alma mater	Cornell University
Occupation(s)	Writer, academic
Employer	Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

Michael James Wilson (born 1974) is an American-Argentine writer based in Chile. He achieved critical acclaim and received the Critics' and National Council of Culture and the Arts awards in 2014 for his fifth novel, Leñador (2013).

Biography

Although Mike Wilson was born in the United States, most of his childhood and adolescence were spent in South America. When he was three years old, he arrived in Chile with his American father and Argentine mother; at seven they moved to Asunción, Paraguay, and finally settled in Buenos Aires, where Wilson would attend some primary school and receive all of his secondary education.

The family returned to the United States after his father became a diplomat during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, and Wilson entered Cornell University in New York, where he studied Hispanic Literature and met Edmundo Paz Soldán.

He returned to Chile in 2005 after receiving his doctorate, and obtained a position as professor of English Literature at the Catholic University. Since then he has resided in that country.

He published the novel Nachtrópolis in 2003. Wilson defined it as "an alternate history set in the 40s in a version of Buenos Aires overflown by German Zeppelins and under a Perón government controlled by the Reich."

Five years later El púgil was released, a text in which "the references range from the work and life of Roberto Arlt to the aesthetics of Blade Runner, and from the classic trans-Andean comic book The Eternaut to the voice of Orson Welles reading The War of the Worlds." His 2009 post-apocalyptic novel Zombie tells the story of some teenagers who have survived the destruction of La Avellana, a neighborhood that could well be Santiago's La Dehesa, with a "devastating panorama of once perfect houses with perfect courtyards for perfect families." The boys who survive, "abandoned to their fate, end up behaving like zombies addicted to methamphetamine."

On the eve of publishing his second novel, Wilson was signed by Guillermo Schavelzon's agency, which meant moving from the small publisher Forja to Alfaguara, who released his third novel, Rockabilly (2011). Journalist Alberto Rojas described it as "a terrifying trip to those places away from the big American cities that Wilson knows well, where men and women live in search of their broken dreams, in the midst of nights that seem never to end."

In Letras Libres, Mauricio Montiel [es] wrote that "the best of contemporary Latin American narrative is brewing away from the center and near the periphery," and that a good example of this thesis are these two novels by "Wilson, rara avis that has decided to return to the bustle of the downtown – read literary – establishment to face the apparent suburban stillness with a look full of concern, and I say and emphasize 'apparent', because in the powerful suburban diptych composed of Zombie and Rockabilly that peace goes on to reveal a substratum of contained violence that ends up emerging in unsuspected and openly disturbing ways."

His fifth novel, Leñador (2013), marked a turn in several ways. "I was interested in the possibility of writing without narrating, without the necessary action that everyone expects," explained Wilson, who said that this would be the last work of fiction he would publish. The author "resigned to a position of privilege in the national literary medium," and ended his link with agent Guillermo Schavelzon and Alfaguara to publish his novel with a small Chilean label, Orjikh. In addition, he shut down his blog and his Facebook account; his name does not appear on the cover of the book. As the critic and writer Patricio Jara said, "a peaceful and silent retreat, just like the retirement of the woodcutter" who stars in the novel.

José Promis, meanwhile, explained that, "to carry out his desacralizador y rupturista project, Mike Wilson has drawn on elements characteristic of popular culture, peripheral culture during the golden age of the great continental narratives."

After publishing Leñador, Wilson declared that he had abandoned fiction, and his next book, Wittgenstein y el sentido tácito de las cosas (2014) seemed to confirm this decision; however, he later returned to narrative. In 2016 he wrote Scout, "a story quite traditional in its narrative," which he published in fanzine format. Early the following year he released Ártico: una lista with Fiordo, a small Buenos Aires publishing house that had reissued Leñador. The text – which in his words "is an inventory of impressions, a nouvelle in verse, a long poem, a list" – was written in 2015 in Ushuaia, on a trip to Argentine Patagonia.

"At the time I wrote, Leñador, I did not want anything to do with narrative. I needed to get away and I did not want to continue publishing fiction; it was what I honestly felt at that moment and I still think a little," said Wilson about his return to fiction, recognizing that he "cheated" after that novel when writing Scout. He explains this act as, "a way of not being on the official circuit, the same as publishing in Argentina. That distance calms me down, now I publish again, but Ártico is not a conventional narrative. I enjoy writing – it makes me well, it is necessary – but the process that comes after, not so much; working with publishers and promotion in the media are not situations in which I feel very comfortable."

Works

Nachtrópolis, novel, Editorial Ambrosía, Buenos Aires, 2003
El púgil, novel, Editorial Forja, Santiago, 2008
Zombie, novel, Alfaguara, Santiago, 2009
Rockabilly, novel, Alfaguara, Santiago, 2011
Where Is My Mind? Cognición, literatura y cine, essay, Cuarto Propio, Santiago, 2012
Leñador, novel, Orjikh, Santiago, 2013
Wittgenstein y el sentido tácito de las cosas, essay, Orjikh, Santiago, 2014
Scout, fanzine, 2016
Ártico: una lista, Fiordo, Buenos Aires, 2017
Ciencias ocultas, novel, Fiordo, Buenos Aires, 2019
Némesis, novel, Mw, Chile, 2020
Un niño llamado Gárgola, children's novel, Planeta, Buenos Aires, 2022
Dios duerme en la piedra, novel, Fiordo, Buenos Aires, 2023

Awards

2013: Catholic University Artistic Creation Award
2014: Critics' Award, for Leñador
2014: National Council of Culture and the Arts Award, for Leñador

References

Zunini, Por Patricio. "Mike Wilson: "La última frontera que queda es la de los extremos"". infobae (in European Spanish). Retrieved 11 December 2023.
^ Díaz Oliva, Antonio (3 April 2010). "El señor de los zombies". Qué Pasa (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 15 August 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
^ Guerrero, Pedro Pablo (19 March 2017). "Mike Wilson y la estética del frío". El Mercurio (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 November 2018.
"Wilson, Mike" (in Spanish). Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
^ Novoa, Marcelo (30 July 2008). "Hablemos de Mike Wilson y 'El Púgil'" (in Spanish). Puerto de Escape. Archived from the original on 22 November 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Hidalgo, Daniel (17 May 2010). "Mike Wilson: Los muertos están vivos" [Mike Wilson: The Dead are Alive]. El Mostrador (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 November 2018.
"Mike Wilson" (in Spanish). Guillermo Schavelzon Agencia Literaria. Archived from the original on 11 April 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Rojas M., Alberto (18 May 2011). "'Rockabilly': Una inquietante novela sobre los rincones más oscuros del 'sueño americano'" ['Rockabilly': A Disturbing Novel About the Darkest Corners of the 'American Dream']. El Mercurio (in Spanish). Santiago. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Montiel, Mauricio (31 July 2011). "Zombie y Rockabilly de Mike Wilson". Letras Libres (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Jara, Patricio (15 March 2013). "Mike Wilson se desconecta: publica su última novela" [Mike Wilson Disconnects: He Publishes His Last Novel]. La Tercera (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Promis, José (12 June 2011). "El legado de Elvis Presley" [The Legacy of Elvis Presley]. El Mercurio Revista de Libros (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Saffie, Nicole (21 March 2013). "Mike Wilson y Alejandro Guarello obtienen Premio a la Creación Artística UC" [Mike Wilson and Alejandro Guarello Receive the UC Artistic Creation Award] (in Spanish). Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
^ Ortega, Francisco (17 October 2014). "El espacio interior de Mike Wilson" [The Interior Space of Mike Wilson]. Revista Capital (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2018.

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