Jorge Asis

Jorge Cayetano Zaín Asís (Avellaneda, Buenos Aires province, March 3, 1946), known as Jorge Asís and nicknamed Turk, is an Argentine writer, journalist and political analyst who has also held public and diplomatic positions.

Biography

His parents were Francisca Asís, a worker in the textile industry, and Jorge Zaín, a merchant. Both were children of immigrants from Syria: Francisca's parents came from the vicinity of Homs and Jorge's from Damascus.His character of Don Abdel Zalim is inspired by the figure of her father.

A journalist with a provocative personality and political observer, he has cultivated several literary genres as a writer. His novel Stolen Flowers in the Quilmes Gardens , published in 1980, became a best seller with 350,000 copies sold. This novel, dedicated to Haroldo Conti, the Argentine writer who disappeared in 1976 during the National Reorganization Process, was made into a film in 1985 under the direction of Antonio Ottone.

In 1971 he wrote the book How the communists eat children, published by Ediciones L.H.S.R.L. On the back cover, Carlos Marcucci wrote: «Jorge Asís, equipped with exemplary heroism, tries to bear witness to this genocide that the Western and Christian world witnesses as a timid spectator». The work is his first book of short stories and in it " he recalls with the scandalizing axiom his communist militancy, as ephemeral as his first youth, in which he divided himself between the adventures of the neighborhood and the books ».

Asís also ventured as an actor in the role of Fábulo Vega in a 1973 film, La muerte de Sebastián Arache y su pobre entierro, script and direction by Nicolás Sarquís, according to the argument of this director, Luis Priamo and Haroldo Conti.

Starting in 1989 during the government of Carlos Saúl Menem, he served as Argentine ambassador to UNESCO, a role he held until 1994, and went on to hold the position of Secretary of Culture of the Nation. After his brief stint at that secretariat, he was appointed ambassador to Portugal from 1997 to 1999, when President Menem's term ended.

In October 2007, he was a candidate for Vice President of the Nation, accompanying the then former governor of the province of Neuquén, Jorge Sobisch. On how his running mate overcame the crisis regarding the murder of teacher Carlos Fuentealba in April of that year He said: "This man puts what needs to be put, this man has firmness, I believe him and I buy him a used car."

Work

Novel and short story

• How the Communists Eat Kids (1971)
• The demonstration (1971)
• Don Abdel Salim, the mocker of Domínico (1972)
• The type family (1974)
• The busted (1974)
• Fe de ratas (1976)
• Flowers stolen in the Quilmes Gardens (1980). Taken to the cinema in a 1985 homonymous film.
• Carne Picada (1981)
• El Buenos Aires de Oberdán Rocamora (1981)
• The Street of the Dead Horses (1982)
• Cazadores de Canguros (1983)
• Journal of Argentina (1984)
• The Pretext of Paris (1986)
• Intelligence Parties (1987)
• Cuaderno del acostado (1988)
• The filmmaker and midwife (and the Marxist sociologist who died of love) (1989)
• The line of Hamlet or the ethics of betrayal (1995)
• Sandra, the rag. (1996)
• Lesca, the irreducible fascist (2000)
• From Flore Al Montparnasse (2000)
• Excellencies of nothing (2001)
• Full stories (2005)
• Special edition 30 years Flowers stolen in the Quilmes Gardens (2010)
• Reissue Journal of Argentina (2012)
• Men of Grey (2012)
• Casa Casta (2012)
• Wild tulips in rose water (2012)
• Sweet autumnals (2014)
• Misrepresented memories (2017)

Poetry

• Miss life (1970)

Politics

• Political Fiction (1985)
• La Marroquinería Política (2006)
• The Decay (2007)
• The chosen one and the chosen one (2008)
• The Posthumous Kirchnerism (2011)
• The Mafia of Good: The Third Radical Government of Macri (2018)