Gambaro, Griselda

(1928– )

   Argentine novelist and playwright. Born in Buenos Aires, Gambaro began her literary trajectory as a novelist, a career she combined with that of a playwright. Although she began to write early, amid a variety of jobs and occupations, her first works were not published until the 1960s. In 1965 her play El desatino was first performed in the Sala de Experimentación Audiovisual del Instituto Di Tella in Buenos Aires, under the direction of Jorge Petraglia. Three years later, her play El campo debuted in the Teatro Sha in Buenos Aires, under the direction of Augusto Fernández. El campo, rooted in the tradition of Artaud’s “theater of cruelty,” presents a stark vision of life in a concentration camp and is often read as a presage to the Argentine situation under the military regime. In 1977 her novel Ganarse la muerte was banned by the government of General Jorge Rafael Videla as being “against the institution of the family” and “against the social order.” The ban, and the increasing political repression, sent Gambaro into exile in Barcelona, Spain.

   In 1981 Gambaro’s play Decir que sí (Saying Yes) was staged in the first cycle of Teatro Abierto Argentino (Open Theater of Argentina), the best-known example of cultural resistance to emerge during the years of the military regime. She would go on to garner national and international acclaim with her 1982 work La malasangre (Bad Blood), first staged in the Teatro Olimpia under the direction of Laura Yusem. In line with other plays from the Teatro Abierto Argentino, the works offer an oblique commentary on the political situation in Argentina during the “dirty war.”

   A prolific playwright and novelist—with nearly 30 plays and novels to her credit—Gambaro has had her plays staged abroad in England, France, Belgium, and Mexico. Some of her works have also been adapted for the radio by the BBC of London, Sverige Radio, and France Culturel. In 1982 she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has received numerous awards in her native Argentina for both her dramatic and narrative work, notably the Argentores Award on four occasions (1976, 1990, 1992, and 1996) and the Academia Argentina de Letras award of 1997/1999 for her collection of short stories Lo mejor que se viene. She has also received several distinctions abroad, most notably in Spain and Mexico, where she has lectured on theater. A frequent lecturer abroad, Gambaro has participated in symposia at Dartmouth College in 1987, Universidad de Valencia (Spain) in 1992, University of Bordeaux (France) in 1992 and 1994, and the Universidad de Cuenca (Spain) in 1998.