Integrated stories. Santiago Arcos, editor, 2005.  Alpha Decay, 2011.  152 pages

The voices that weave the stories in Los Lemmings y otros draw an area in the new Argentine narrative: the psychedelic, street Boedo of the late 20^th Century, as a political and aesthetic anthropology of a generation, of a world.

“If these stories read like a short novel it is not on account of any experiment with genre but because of the continuity of their characters and their setting, the Buenos Aires neighbourhood known as  Boedo. Rather than a setting, Boedo is a vocation, a destiny, a complete world, with its border skirmishes, where the tango has been replaced by punk and the discotheque”. Babelia, El País literary supplement.

“The rites of initiation into the adult world. The adult world seen as a place of exile for those who were once children. Childhood itself evoked as a lost paradise that comes with an unmistakable mythology and a very specific setting: Boedo, a working-class Buenos Aires neighbourhood. With this common-place material Fabián Casas constructs an extraordinarily convincing world possessed of subtle humour and dry, intense lyricism. He achieves this thanks to a quality that he radiates on both the stylistic and moral levels: authenticity. A sometimes slippery, dangerous category when talking of literature. But which provides evidence and content in this deceptively light, moving, entertaining book, which is situated in a space somewhere between a collection of stories, a novel in progress, and a book of memoirs”. Ignacio Echevarría

“One of the most striking things about Casas’ prose is its precision. It never gets in its own way. What works is the anecdote, and within its universe, orality of course plays an important role. The power of the anecdote, its speed, its conviction, its variable weight, light enough to get inside and back out but powerful enough for the knock-out punch is what defines his way of narrating. His literature grows by itself, without ever losing touch with those who read it. It is perhaps for this reason that his stories as so similar to a good song”. Juan Terranova

Published by: Spanish: Santiago Arcos, Argentine/ Alpha Decay, Spain

Novel. Santiago Arcos Editor, 2008. 105 pages

Andrés, main character of this short novel lives with his father and brother. His mother, who brought some  order to all their lives and gave them some connection, has died. Andrés locks himself up in his room almost entirely cut off from the world listening to music (he loves the second part of the Beatles’ Abbey Road, particularly the medley that ends in “The End”), reading, or writing texts he hopes to publish in a literary journal that some of his friends may get going. It is with these friends he goes out at night, takes drugs…

Idleness has a rock ‘n roll spirit, but also has life beyond these references.

Idleness, the film based on the novel and directed by Alejandro Lingenti and Juan Villegas, was shown at the Berlin Festival to rave reviews.

“The power of the anecdote, its speed, its conviction, its variable weight, light enough to get inside and back out but powerful enough for the knockout punch is what defines his way of telling a story”. Juan Terranova El interpretador

“What holds this together is an imploded, vigorous family under attack…but also the Boedo neighbourhood, harsh, “annoying” yet fascinating for him who has experienced it and writes about it like in a good Jack London story, or in some of Roberto Arlt’s unforgettable plots”. Elvio Gandolfo. Revista Noticias

“The episodic nature, the constant movement of microstories blend into a “background music“ which gives them support, the meticulous work with the language creates the illusion of orality and defines a personal style”. Sandro Barrella. La Nación

“The reader can’t stop: he asks for more and more torture”. Guillermo Piro

Published by: Spanish Santiago Arcos/ Germany Rotbuch

Essays   Planeta Argentina, 2007. 227 Pages

The paths  Fabián Casas sets out in Ensayos Bonsai are generally unpredictable: he can jump from Spinoza’s concept of power to an essay by Marcelo Cohen to Argentine letters and a bit further on to something Kurt Cobain found funny to the search for a shoeshop in a neighbourhood that was invisible until he needed it.

He can talk about  Borges’  El escritor argentino y la tradición, about Gombrowicz’ prologue to Ferdyduke and Arlt´s to  Los lanzallamas, all this topped off with his dog’s age-old instinct for conscientiously digging a well.

Football World Cups and rock stars, family and friends, the poetry of Eliot and Daniel Durand, film plots and the thoughts of philosophers…all of this has its part in these thirty-five essays.

There at the intersection of Oriental wisdom, rock ‘n roll, the ideals of messianic revolutionaries, the great poets of the Americas, and football emerges Casas’ writing: Zen Boedism.

“I am greatly stimulated by being told that one thing cannot be crossed with another”: Why not? Casas wonders.

“There cannot be any more interesting writers”. Roberto Giaccaglia, Word Press

“’Literature in Ensayos Bonsai is not a body that obstructs what is said, but a natural channel in which all this flow of poetry and life becomes written text…a book that reveals the story of a life and a world of generational readings”. Mauro Libertella, Página 12

“ The texts in this book include insightful reflections characteristic of the essay, evocations and dramatic events that could form part of a short story as well as traces and characters which are repeated, so we may well be talking about the missing links of a great future novel.” Josefina Ludmer

“An exceptional knack for quoting”. Elvio Gandolfo
Published by: Planeta Argentina

Horla City. Collected poetry. Editorial Planeta, 2010. 207 pages.

Fabián Casas is a popular poet. He also enjoys the favour of the critics and of his peers but there is something in his language that causes his poems to be devotedly read by people who usually do not read texts in verse. Casas, a poet of that which is common, is capable of reaching common people with his poetry.

His books are passed from hand to hand and word of mouth takes them beyond the usual boundaries of the audience for poetry, so much so that he is perhaps the most widely-read poet in Latin America. In the last two decades, Casas has constructed some memorable short pieces.

WIth what is left of the old dogmas, Casas makes social poetry in a time of disenchantment, and shows that love and despair are at times the same thing.

A best-selling poet who manages to do what very few poets do: sell, and sell well.

“This poet is not adequately described by the word colloquial, which wrongly suggests orality and calls for explanations. Fabián Casas writes solid blocks of words, without alternatives, without reiterations or endings with open syntax, finished blocks that do not remain hanging nor are falsely incomplete. Blocks which do not permit taking away or adding anything”. Beatriz Sarlo

“This is both a cool and a popular book in that Casas’ poetry reaches everyone—students of literature, professors, writers, rock ‘n roll fans…What is more: try and give a Casas text to someone who is not in the habit of reading. Ten-to-one he will like it and even become a fan.” Blog “El spleen de Boedo”.

Published by: Spanish Planeta Argentina

In 2007 he received Germany’s prestigious Anna Seghers Prize for, as the jury said, “having an extraordinary poetry and for his work’s being a source of inspiration for the authors of Latin America.” Ocio, the film based on the novel of the same name and directed by Alejandro Lingenti and Juan Villegas, was shown at the Berlin Festival to excellent reviews.

His works have been translated into several languages.

“Fabián Casas constructs an extraordinarily convincing narrative world possessed of subtle humour and a dry, intense lyricism”. Ignacio Echevarría

“One of the central poets in the objective line which beginning in the 90’s vigorously renewed Argentine poetry…A sensivity where without any posturing  Schopenhauer and Astroboy play in the same league”. Edgardo Dobry, Babelia, the El País literary supplement.

“One of the most audacious writers”. Care Santos, El Cultural. El Mundo supplement

“There is much of the Arlt of El juguete rabioso in Casas“. Alan Pauls

Works

Los Lemmings (The lemmıngs). Short stories, 2005, 2011
Horla City y otros (Horla ciıty and others). Complete poetry, 2010
Ensayos bonsai (Bonsai essays). Essays, 2007
Ocio (Idleness). Novel, 2000
El spleen de Boedo (Boedo blues). Poetry, 2004
Oda (Ode). Poetry, 2003
Rita viaja al cosmos con Mariano (Rıta and Mariano travel into space). Children’s story, 2009
El salmon (The salmon). Poetry, 1996
Tuca. (Roach). Poetry  1990