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Ocampo, Silvina

(1903-1993) Argentinian editor, journalist, painter, poet and author, married to Adolfo Bioy Casares from 1940 until her death, long associated with Jorge Luis Borges mainly through the almost conjugal conversations between their fiction, much of which in both cases was written in the late 1930s and 1940s; and as collaborator in the extremely influential Antologia de la Literatura Fantástica (anth 1940; trans various hands as The Book of Fantasy 1988) with Bioy Casares and Borges. Though her work is radiantly fantastic (see Fantastika), her use of sf topoi was – though nothing was casual in her work through a long career – almost invariably surreal, lacking sf mensurations; its literalism was the literalism of Magic Realism. Her detective novel, Los que aman, odian (1946; trans Suzanne Jill Levine and Jessica Powell as Where There's Love, There's Hate 2013) with Adolfo Bioy Casares, is nonfantastic. [JC]

Silvina Inocencia Ocampo Aguirre

born Buenos Aires, Argentina: 28 July 1903

died Buenos Aires, Argentina: 14 December 1993

collections and stories

• Viaje olvidado (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sur, 1937) [coll: binding unknown/]
  • Forgotten Journey (San Francisco, California: City Lights Books, 2019) [coll: trans by Katie Lateef-Jan and Suzanne Jill Levine of the above: pb/Elizabeth Knafo]
• Los que aman, odian (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Emecé, 1946) with Adolfo Bioy Casares [novella: binding unknown/]
  • Where There's Love, There's Hate (New York: Melville House, 2013) with Adolfo Bioy Casares [novella: trans by Suzanne Jill Levine and Jessica Powell of the above: pb/]
• La torre sin fin (Madrid, Spain: Alfaguara, 1985) [novella: binding unknown/Gogo Husso]
  • The Topless Tower (London: Hesperus Worldwide, 2010) [novella: chap: trans by James Womack of the above: pb/Isabel Wilkinson]
• Leopoldina's Dream (New York: Penguin Books, 1988) [coll: trans by Daniel Baldstron from various sources: introduction by Jorge Luis Borges: pb/]
  • Thus Were Their Faces: Stories (New York: New York Review Books, 2015) [coll: exp rev vt of the above: pb/Remediso Varo]
    • The Impostor and Other Stories (London: Serpent's Tail, 2022) [coll: vt of the above: pb/]
• La promesa (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Lumen Editorial Sudamericana, 2011) [novella: binding unknown/]
  • The Promise (San Francisco, California: City Lights Books, 2019) [trans by Suzanne Jill Levine and Jessica Powell of the above: pb/Elizabeth Knafo]

poetry (highly selected)

• Espacios Métricos ["Metrical Spaces"] (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sur, 1942) [poetry: coll: chap: pb/]
• Silvina Ocampo (New York: New York Review Books, 2015) [poetry: coll: trans by Jason Weiss from various sources: pb/Emily Singer]

works as editor

• Antologia de la Literatura Fantástica (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamerica, 1940) with Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges [anth: pb/]
  • Antologia de la Literatura Fantástica (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamerica, 1965) with Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges [anth: exp of the above: pb/]
    • The Book of Fantasy (New York: Viking, 1988) with Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges [anth: trans by various hands of the revised edition above: hb/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 11:40 am on 24 June 2025.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/ocampo_silvina>