Juan Emar is the pen name of the Chilean writer, artist and critic Álvaro Yáñez Bianchi (1893–1964). He was the son of a politician and diplomat, and split his time between Santiago and Paris. In Paris, he associated with the avant-garde artists of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. He published four books between 1935 and 1937 – Un año, Miltín, Ayer and Diez – but was met with critical indifference. His works were rediscovered after his death, and his reputation has grown in recent decades as a precursor of modernist literature in Latin America.
