This article is about the Argentine writer. For other uses, see Copi (disambiguation).
Raúl Damonte Botana
Born
November 20, 1939
Buenos Aires
Died
December 14, 1987
Paris
Nationality
Argentine
Occupation(s)
Writer, Cartoonist, Playwright
Notable work
La Femme assise (The Sitting Woman)
Copi and Susana Giménez.jpg
Raúl Damonte Botana (November 20, 1939 – December 14, 1987), better known by the nom de plume Copi (French:[kɔpi]; from "copito de nieve", Spanish for "little snowflake"), was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.
Biography
Damonte spent most of his youth in Montevideo. His maternal grandfather was the journalist Natalio Félix Botana and his father was the journalist Raúl Damonte Taborda, an antiperonist Radical politician and director of the journal Tribuna Popular. Raúl showed an early talent for drawing and, from his adolescence, contributed caricatures to his father's publication and to the satirical magazine Tía Vicenta.
His father's political activities forced the family into exile in Uruguay, Haiti, and later New York City. He finally settled in Paris, where he embarked on a career as a cartoonist for such newspapers as Le Nouvel Observateur. His most notable character during this period was La Femme assise, The Sitting Woman.
He was a member of Tse, an association of Franco-Argentine artists with whom in 1969 he staged a biographical play about Eva Perón. His theatrical works, influenced by Samuel Beckett, are characterized by the failure of characters to communicate.
Copi contributed cartoons to the magazine Gai Pied.[1]
He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1987, at the age of 48.
Novels
L'Uruguayen, Christian Bourgois, 1973
Le bal des folles, Christian Bourgois, 1977
Une langouste pour deux, Christian Bourgois, 1978
La cité des rats, Belfond, 1979
La vida es un tango, Anagrama, 1981(his only finished novel in Spanish)
La guerre des pédés, Albin Michel, 1982 (written in Spanish but unedited)
Virginia Woolf a encore frappé, Persona, 1983
L'Internationale argentine, Belfond, 1988
Theater
Un ángel para la señora Lisca, Buenos Aires, directed by Copi, 1962.
Sainte Geneviève dans sa baignoire, Le Bilboquet, directed by Jorge Lavelli, 1966.
L'alligator, le thé, International festival of UNEF, directed by Jérome Savary, 1966.
La journée d'une rêveuse, Theater of Lutèce, directed by Jorge Lavelli, 1968.
Eva Perón, Theater of l'Épée-de-Bois, directed by Alfredo Arias, 1970.
L'homosexuel ou la difficulté de s'exprimer, City University Theater, directed by Jorge Lavelli, 1971. Spanish title: El homosexual, o la dificultad de expresarse.
Les quatre jumelles, Le Palace, directed by Jorge Lavelli, 1973.
