Cucurto was born Santiago Vega in a working-class family in Quilmes, in Greater Buenos Aires, in 1973. He started his literary career as a poet, and was often associated with the generation of young writers who, through their different – and sometimes opposite – interpretations of American Objectivism and neo-baroque formulations, transformed Argentine poetry in the second half of the 1990s (a movement known as
Poesía argentina de los noventa). He has stated that his penname Cucurto is the result of his poet friends mocking his stuttering while saying “yo curto” (roughly translated as “I do/like”). In 1998 he won, with his book
Zelarayán, the “Second Spanish-American Contest”, organised by the prestigious Argentine poetry journal
Diario de poesía.The award brought…
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Citation: Aguilo, Ignacio. "Washington Cucurto". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 July 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13474, accessed 23 November 2024.]
