On the first anniversary of the writer’s death at the age of 82 Beatriz SarloOne of the most famous Argentine intellectuals, who made the leap from academia to the media with her interventions in the media and in public debates, no honor is planned, although she will undoubtedly be remembered on social networks.
Meanwhile, the matter of his successor remains paralyzed. Sarlo’s assets include two apartments (one on Hidalgo Street in the Caballito neighborhood and another that he used as a studio at 100 Talcahuano Street), the copyright to his work, and some money in bank accounts.
His books, which continue to be read and published, generate royalties that are transferred to a bank account managed by Judge Fernando Cesari of the Civil Court No. 60, known for having brought forward a trial because it coincided with that of a national team match during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
After the deaths of Sarlo’s maternal cousin, Ernestina Susana del Río, who sought an heir to the throne together with Álvaro Edmundo Sarlo Sabajanes, the paternal cousin, and Alberto Sato, the husband from whom she never divorced (despite the fact that both formed new couples starting in the 1970s, since their marital status was single in the author’s document), the succession was put on hold laid on hold until the heirs of Del Río, who had no children but nephews, were defined. Sato and Sarlo had married in March 1966 and separated in the turbulent 1970s.
When Sarlo died, Sato urgently had to travel from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires to authorize the funeral arrangements. In the middle of the year, the judiciary overturned the ruling that excluded Sato from the succession; Now his lawyer must prove that, despite having lived for decades with their respective partners in different countries (Sato in Chile, Sarlo in Argentina), both shared “a life project”.
On the other hand, LA NACION revealed in the middle of the year that the manager of the Hidalgo 140 building, Melanio Alberto Meza López, had presented himself in the succession as heir to the apartment that the author shared with her partner, the filmmaker Rafael Filippelli, until his death in March 2023 and in which she continued to live, affected by health problems. Meza López presented as evidence a handwritten note signed by Sarlo in which she left him “in charge” of her apartment and the care of the cat Nini (or Niní). The judicial report found that Sarlo’s note was genuine.
With this novelty and with the appearance of the octogenarian cousins in the case, the project of a group of friends of the author (Adrián Gorelik, Graciela Silvestri, Ada Solari, Hugo Vezzetti, Sylvia Saítta, designated executor of the Sarlian work, David Oubiña and Adriana Amante, who questioned the sanity of her mentor at the time of writing the letter presented by Meza López) became the money of using inheritance to create “cultural trust”. Another group of friends distanced themselves from this suggestion.
Sarlo’s library and archive, by decision of his closest friends, were transferred from the department of Talcahuano to the Center for Documentation and Research of Left Culture (CeDInCI), directed by historian Horacio Tarcus and where Sarlo was buried. As an example of the time, it is worth noting that the institution, which was defunded by the government from 2024, is collecting funds to be able to pay the fees of an archivist for four or six months. This Wednesday, CeDInCI will broadcast a video in honor of Sarlo, with images from his library and archive. A volunteer has already cataloged more than a thousand books, and if the institution receives financial support, it can hire a student to advance the description of the archive, with the aim of opening it, like the library, for public consultation in mid-2026.
In recent weeks, Sarlo’s succession took an unexpected turn when lawyer José María Nasra, representing an animal protection association, asked Judge Cesari – who confirmed the decision of his predecessor in the case, Judge Cecilia Kandus, to close the file for public consultation – to submit a report on the health status of Sarlo’s cat Nini, who currently lives with the manager’s family. Cesari opposed the measure, although he opened a new file; Nasra appealed and the application went to Chamber E of the National Court of Appeal.
LA NACION was able to learn that Nini is doing well, although months ago she was “hurriedly” taken from the apartment in Sarlo on the eighth floor together with Meza López’s cat, at the request of the lawyer of the cousin in Viedma, who died in early October.
On an editorial level, Siglo XXI was published in the collection of the Beatriz Sarlo Library in February Do not understand. Memoirs of an Intellectual ($26,590), posthumous book that was in the care of Saítta and Gorelik (where it focuses on family, friends and love). The first edition sold out within a few weeks and a second edition was published.
This month the publisher just released a new edition with a new cover. Borges, a writer on the coast ($22,990), a 1993 essay that has nearly sold out in bookstores, in which the author develops her thesis on Borgesian literature (which she locates between the universal and the local). True to form, Borges’ widow, the writer María Kodama, had taken Sarlo to court because the essayist had told a Chilean newspaper that Kodama was hindering the critical edition of Borges’ work. Sarlo never forgot this affront.
Siglo XXI will be re-released in August The technical imagination: modern dreams of Argentine culturea brilliant essay from 1992 in which the author emphasizes “the symbolic weight of technical pioneering” among the popular sectors and some intellectuals such as Roberto Arlt and Horacio Quiroga in the first decades of the 20th century.
Finally the portal Infobae published this year Like Sarlo saida free downloadable digital book that compiles interviews given by the author to this medium between 2017 and 2024, with a foreword by Flavia Pittella. Sarlo spoke to journalists Luis Novaresio, María Laura Santillán, Hinde Pomeraniec, Facundo Chaves, Diego Rojas (a great friend of Sarlo) and Patricia Kolesnicov, who, after consulting with LA NACION, emphasized that it was a free book whose publication they had analyzed with the “group of friends” of the author, who died a year ago.
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