Tomás Eloy Martínez

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Tomás Eloy Martínez (born July 16, 1934 in Tucumán) is an Argentine journalist and writer. He obtained a degree in Spanish and Latin American literature from the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, and a doctorate at the University of Paris.

From 1957 to 1961 he was a film critic in Buenos Aires for the La Nación newspaper, and he then was editor in chief (1962-69) of the magazine Primera Plana. From 1969 to 1970 he worked as a reporter in Paris. In 1970 he and many former writers of Primera Plana worked at the magazine Panorama, where Martínez was the director.

On 15 August 1972 he learned of the uprising of political prisoners in the jail at Rawson, Chubut Province. Panorama was the only publication in Buenos Aires that reported the correct story of the affair in Rawson, which differed significantly from the official version of the de facto Argentine government. On 22 August he was fired at the behest of the government, whereupon he went to Rawson and the neighboring city of Trelew where he reported the Massacre of Trelew in his book The Passion According to Trelew. The book was banned by the Argentine dictatorship.

For three years (1972-75) Martínez was in charge of the cultural supplement of La Nación, after which he lived in exile (1975-83) in Caracas, Venezuela, where he remained active as a journalist, founding the newspaper El Diario. In his book "The Memoirs of the General" he recounts that he was threatend by the "AAA", the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina , and on one occasion gunmen held a pistol to the head of his 3-year-old son because they were witnesses to a crime which Martinez believes was an operation of the "AAA". He subsequently started the newspaper Siglo 21 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and created the literary supplement Primer Plano for the newspaper Página/12 in Buenos Aires.

Martínez has also been an active teacher and lecturer. He was a professor (1984-87) at the University of Maryland and from 1995 on has been a distinguished professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey, where he has been director of its Latin American studies program. He lives in nearby Highland Park, New Jersey. He also has a home in Buenos Aires. He writes columns for La Nación and the New York Times syndicate, and his articles have appeared in many newspapers and journals in Latin America.

He has published a number of books, one of which, Santa Evita, has been translated into 32 languages and published in 50 countries. He was awarded the Guggenheim and Woodrow Wilson scholarships and won the Alfaguara award for the novel Flight of the Queen for the year 2002. His works deal primarily (but not exclusively) with Argentina during and after the rule of Juan Perón and his wife, Eva Duarte de Perón (Evita).