Arturo Fontaine Talavera (Santiago, 1952) is a novelist, poet and essayist, considered as one of the most representative writers of the Chilean literary movement "New Narrative", which emerged in the 1990s.
Fontaine studied philosophy and taught at the University of Chile before pursuing graduate studies and teaching at Columbia University. After earning an MA and an MPhil, Fontaine returned to Chile and joined the independent liberal think tank Centre for Public Studies as a translator, heading up the quarterly magazine Estudios Públicos. In 1983, he was named its Director. He also taught philosophy at the University of Chile. Under his leadership, the CEP became a meeting place for intellectuals and an intellectual centre of great academic prestige and influence, while the magazine became an outlet for different points of view. In 2013, after 31 years at CEP, Fontaine was forced to resign with the board saying it needed to take a new direction. The media interpreted Fontaine firing as a result of polarisation of Chilean society together with his critical analysis of the administration of President Piñera.
As a writer, Fontaine is known for his poetry and fiction. He published his first book of poetry, Nueva York, in 1976. This was followed by Poemas hablados (1989), Tu nombre en vano (1995), and Mis ojos x tus ojos (2007). His poems have also appeared in numerous anthologies. Fontaine's first novel was the highly acclaimed Oír Su Voz (1992), which was followed by Cuando eramos inmortales (1998) and the award-winning, La vida doble in 2010.
Biography Early life Son of the poet Valentina Talavera Balmaceda (1928–2011) and the lawyer and journalist Arturo Fontaine Aldunate, ex-Chilean ambassador to Argentina, director of the El Mercurio newspaper and winner of the Premio Nacional for Journalism, Fontaine is the eldest of six children. He is married and separated from Mercedes Ducci, with whom he has two children.
Fontaine spent his childhood and adolescence between Santiago and Quechereguas, a small community near the River Maule, where the family had an old estate. He went to the Sagrados Corazones de Maquehue College.
University Later he continued his studies in the department of Humanities at the University of Chile while simultaneously studying law at the Catholic University (Católica) (although he left his law studies before completion).
Fontaine graduated with maximum honours at the beginning of 1977. He was awarded a degree in philosophy and immediately afterwards was appointed as a teacher at his alma mater.
In September of the same year Fontaine travelled to the United States to continue his post graduate studies in the Philosophy department at Columbia University, New York, where he won the President's Fellowship scholarship and studied under Arthur Danto, among others. He attended several workshops in the writing division of Columbia University and was a student of Manuel Puig – the Argentinian novelist – Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Daniel Halpern, Frank MacShane, among others. In 1980 he was named Preceptor and taught the course known at Columbia as "Humanities" where students read a selection of fundamental literature texts.
Career in Chile Centro de Estudios Públicos With two master's degrees, an MA and an MPhil from the philosophy department of Columbia University, Fontaine returned to Chile to teach at a newly founded university. However, shortly after his return, the university folded due to the changing funding environment in the government of Augusto Pinochet. Fontaine therefore found himself without a job and entered the Centro de Estudios Públicos (Centre for Public Studies) as a translator. Here he soon found himself heading the magazine Estudios Públicos, a quarterly publication dedicated to the Social Sciences and the Humanities. In 1983 he was named Director of the CEP, an independent and liberal institute.
At the same time he worked as a teacher of philosophy at the University of Chile, where he taught – and still teaches – a seminar on aesthetics and as a teacher of political philosophy at the Institute of Political Science in the Catholic University (1990–2007).
Under his leadership the Centre for Public Studies (CEP) was transformed into a meeting place for intellectuals and the political class from all sectors. Many members of the opposition found a place there where they could put forward their points of view via articles in Estudios Publicos and in numerous and popular seminars which were organized to discuss public affairs. The financing of the CEP came from foundations such as the Ford Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy and donations from private businesses.
Fontaine found in the CEP a method of channeling public anxieties and a way to influence the return of democracy. He published various articles, among them "¿Quién defiende la censura previa del libro?" in which he challenged the Chilean censorship policies: "it is doubly serious to know that our culture is being censored and that, on top of that, no one sees the necessity to explain why." Together with other Centres for Studies such as CIEPLAN, CED, FLACSO and SUR, the CEP played a role in ending the dictatorship and the transition period contributing in the construction of an intellectual and politically calm climate, pragmatic, academically rigorous, and favourable to a peaceful and definitive establishment of democracy.María Teresa Teres Lladser, Centros Privados de Investigación en Cs Socialesen Chile, Academia de Humanismo Cristiano y Facultad Latinoamericana de Cs. Sociales (FLACSO), 1986 and Jeffrey M. Puryear, thinking Politics, Intellectuals and Democracy in Chile, 1973–1988, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
In June 1988, the CEP published a poll (cited by The New York Times) showing a general repudiation of the Pinochet regime and predicting its defeat in upcoming elections, contradicting three other published polls that predicted the triumph of Pinochet.
During the rule of the Concertación, the CEP became an intellectual centre of great academic prestige and influence. Of particular importance were its studies and proposals on subjects such as education, the environment, the reform of public administration, financing in politics, social and urban policies for Santiago, indigenous peoples and regulating telecommunications. The polls that they regularly carry out are the best sounding boards and the most credible of any in Chile. The CEP also acts as a lively cultural centre which includes conferences and cinema. In the words of Mario Vargas Llosa: "Arturo Fontaine made of the CEP... an institution of high culture in which liberal theories inspired analysis, propositions (and) at the same time there were debates and meetings of intellectuals... of the most different persuasions... He created the most objective and reliable polls in Chile according to politicians of the whole political spectrum"
On May 10, 2013, after 31 years working in the institution, Fontaine was forced to resign by the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of CEP. Fontaine declared: "This was something unexpected for me". It was explained to him "that CEP needed to start a new phase with a new director". "When I returned to Chile after my studies abroad I wanted to contribute, as an intellectual, to the transition of my country from dictatorship to democracy. At CEP I found a place from where this was possible for me. I believe that CEP under my direction has been a meeting place, an institute were conversations have taken place, an institute devoted to analysis and discussions. CEP has been an independent academic institute, where people not only talk about freedom, but they experience freedom. CEP has not been in service of the right nor the center nor the left. Political Parties and their institutes perform that function. CEP has not been in service of the entrepreneurs either. Entrepreneurial associations perform that function. CEP has been in the service of Chile through its studies and seminars. The most visible example are CEP's polls but there are others".
The media has interpreted Fontaine downfall as a sign of the present polarization in Chilean society. El Mostrador, La Segunda, La Tercera, The Clinic and CNN have suggested that Fontaine critical analysis of President Piñera's administration, his positive evaluation of Michelle Bachelet strategy to win the presidential election in 2013 and, specially, his affinity with the students' protests triggered CEP's Board of Trustees decision.
In fact, his responsibility as a member of the board of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, his novel La vida doble, based on the real story of a leftwing woman trained for the urban guerrilla warfare who was tortured and became a ferocious agent of the dictatorship, the seminars organized by CEP in which several experts questioned the credibility of the figures given by the government about poverty ( Casen poll) and then reached the news even outside Chile (The New York Times, The Economist, the Financial Times covered this story known as "Casengate"), and, in particular, Fontaine's poignant essays against for-profit universities which have influenced the students and are quoted often by the leaders of the students' movement explain CEP's board decision to fire Fontaine. CEP's board, composed mainly by now ready to use the academic prestige of the institution to defend without nuances the existing economic model in Chile. According to Vargas Llosa: CEP's sponsors discovered that Arturo Fontaine is too independent for their taste. The independence of a writer and liberal intellectual would not be useful, in their view, under the present circunstances in Chile. It's "the hour of the trenches," .
Museum of Memory and Human Rights As a director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Fontaine has defended it against criticism from the Right (including politicians from UDI, different journalists and El Mercurio) which considers it to be both divisive and biased. The museum, which remembers those victims who suffered the violations of their human rights under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet "doesn’t pretend to give a neutral or bland account. The facts are presented from the perspective of human rights and the democracy that protects them. The great lesson to be learned is what it means to lose that democracy… the causes don’t excuse the later horrors and cruelty that… systematically violated the life, body and dignity of so many people. The State therefore became the sacrificial priest," wrote Fontaine.Arturo Fontaine Talavera, "Memoria y Derechos Humanos", El Mercurio, 20 January 2010
Literary works From an early age Fontaine stood out for his inclination towards letters and at fourteen he won his first prize, the Alsino, awarded by the organization IBBY, whose jury was presided over by Marcela Paz. His first published book was one of poetry and in its narrative the city and the rural world became entwined. His poems have appeared in various anthologies: Nueva Antologia de la Poesia Castallana of Eduardo Anguita (1981) Antologia de Breve Poema en Chile of Floridor Perez (1998) Antologia de la Poesia Religiosa Chilena of Miguel Arteche and Rodrigo Canovas (2000) Poesia Chilena Desclasifcada of Sergio Olguin (2001)
His short stories have also been anthologized: "Honrrarás a tu padre" in 1998 and "Nuevos pecados capitales of Sergio Olguin" in 2001. He has also published essays on different themes in the magazine Estudios Públicos and his literary articles have appeared in Letras Libres,Fontaine, Arturo (August 2009). "La Firma de Borges". Letras Libres 72Fontaine, Arturo (January 2010). "El Poder de la Mafia", Letras Libres 133 El Mercurio, Nexos, Página/12 and others. His conferences on Marcel Proust and Fernando Pessoa can be seen on video in YouTube.
Nueva York