Unpublished works and manuscript by legendary Argentine writer Cortázar sell for $42,120 at auction

By GUILLERMO GARAT
Associated Press

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — A buyer from Argentina has paid $42,120 for a manuscript of works, including seven unpublished stories, by legendary Argentine writer Julio Cortázar at an auction in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. The bundle of 60-year-old sheets bound together with metal fasteners and bearing the inscription “Julio Cortázar. Historias de Cronopios y de Famas. Paris. 1952” was the basis for the Argentine writer’s iconic “Cronopios and Famas” book, published in 1962. The buyer paid $36,000, plus the auction house’s 17% commission, for the typewritten manuscript containing 46 short stories that make up the heart of what ended up becoming one of Cortázar’s most famous works, written shortly after his arrival in Paris.