Guido, Beatriz. End of a Day. New York. 1966. Scribners. Translated from the Spanish by A. D. Towers. 278 pages. hardcover. Cover: Georgette De Lattre.
FROM THE PUBLISHER -
Written with passion, intelligence and irony, this compelling novel tells of the downfall of a wealthy and aristocratic Argentinian family under the Peron dictatorship. Proud of their European Culture and their immense landholdings, the Praderes find the meaning of their lives lost in the violent and contradictory times of their country. Their world is crumbling, unwilling to recognize its own ruin. To avoid the expropriation of their lands, they sacrifice their reputation to the government; the father, Alejandro, accepts a diplomatic post, thereby implicating them in a social-political order they abhor. Caught hard in the dilemma are the two younger Praderes, the daughter Inés and her brother Jose Luis, who attempt to find through the revolutionary student Pablo Alcobendas a valid meaning to life. As it moves to its fatal conclusion, END OF A DAY assumes the substance of classic tragedy. It also reveals the social and political schisms of modern Latin America in a story of universal poignancy and power. Beatriz Guido is a native of Buenos Aires, her family belonging to the Argentinian upperclass represented by the Praderes in END OF A DAY. She is the author of many novels and short stories, several of which have won literary awards, and three of her works - END OF INNOCENCE, SUMMERSKIN, and THE TERRACE - have been made into motion pictures by her husband, film director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson. END OF A DAY (Spanish title: El Incendio y Las Visperas) has been one of the most successful novels published in Argentina in recent years.
Beatriz Guido (13 December 1924 – 4 March 1988) was an Argentine novelist and screenwriter. Guido was born in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, the daughter of architect Ángel Guido (renowned as the creator of the National Flag Memorial) and of Uruguayan actress Berta Eirin. She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires. She wrote her first novel, La casa del ángel, in 1954. She also wrote a short story named Usurpacion. Because of her outspoken anti-Peronism, she was branded a 'right-wing writer' and a 'false aristocrat' by the government of Juan Perón. In 1959 she married film director and screenwriter Leopoldo Torre Nilsson. She started working with her husband, who took several of her works to the screen. In 1984 she won the Konex Merit Diploma on Letters. That year she was appointed cultural attaché of the Argentine Embassy in Spain. She died of a heart attack in Madrid four years later, at the age of 63.