Juan Carlos Onetti is a Uruguayan writer. A representative of the 1945 generation, to which Mario Benedetti and others also belonged. From 1930 to 1955 he lived in Buenos Aires, then returned to Montevideo. In 1974 he was arrested and imprisoned, released under pressure from the world community. In 1975 he went to Spain, where he lived the rest of his life. I haven't gotten out of bed for the last five years. Author of stories and novels “The Abyss”, “For One Unmarked Grave”, “A Brief Life”, “Shipyard” and others. Winner of the Cervantes Prize (1980).

The story “The Face of Misfortune” was first published in Montevideo in 1960.

Onetti's prose, with his lone hero doubting himself and the world, parallels the searches of the French existentialists.