January 2021 - Page 2 of 10 - Ecuadorian Literature

Alfonso Murriagui

Alfonso Murriagui Valverde (Quito, 1929-January 19, 2017) was an Ecuadorian poet, fiction writer, dramatist, journalist, and an exponent of communism. Murriagui‘s poetry is marked by political and revolutionary ideology. For several years he was an editor of En Marcha, the official weekly periodical of the Central Committee of the Communist Marxist Leninist Party of Ecuador. In 1961 he was a founding member of the Tzántzico group of the 1960s. That same year he began writing for Pucuna magazine. In 1965 he became vice president of the Association of Young Writers of Ecuador. He was the director of public relations of the Luís Vargas Torres de Esmeraldas Technical University from 1972-1976. He was the director of cultural diffusion of the Philosophy Department of the Central University of Ecuador from 1985-1992). During the last 15 years of his life he was the editor of the culture section of the leftist weekly periodical Opción.

Raúl Pérez Torres

Raúl Pérez Torres (Quito, May 11, 1941) is an Ecuadorian writer and cultural promoter. His short story collection En la noche y en la niebla won the Casa de las Américas Prize (Havana, Cuba) in 1980, one of Latin America’s oldest and most prestigious literary awards. In 1995 Pérez’ short story Sólo cenizas hallarás won the Juan Rulfo Prize (France) and the Julio Cortazar Prize. From 2000-2019, Pérez served as the president of the Ecuadorian House of Culture in Quito, and from 2017-2019 served as Ecuador’s Minister of Culture.

Adelaida Velasco Galdós

Adelaida Velasco Galdós (Guayaquil, 1894 – December 26, 1967) was an Ecuadorian writer, feminist, and humanist. She is recognized her dedication to Catholic Christian feminism. In 1932, Velasco co-founded the Legion of Popular Education alongside writer Rosa Borja de Icaza. This organization aimed to promote education and empower women in Ecuador. Additionally, in 1936, she represented Ecuador in the Inter-American Commission of the “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom” in Washington D.C. Starting in 1939, Velasco initiated a campaign to nominate Gabriela Mistral, a renowned Chilean poet, for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her efforts proved successful when Mistral became the first Latin American author to receive the prestigious award in 1945. Mistral later acknowledged in various interviews that it was Adelaida Velasco who had originally proposed her nomination for the Nobel Prize.

Leonor Bravo Velásquez

Leonor Bravo Velásquez (Quito, January 8, 1953) is an Ecuadorian children’s and young adult author. She has published 54 books, 44 of which are stories and novels that are available in various countries throughout Latin America and the United States, as well as major libraries specializing in children’s literature around the world. Her books “La biblioteca secreta de la Escondida” and “Dos cigüeñas, una bruja y un dragón,” are on the IBBY Honor List (International Board on Books for Young People).

Raúl Andrade Moscoso

Raúl Andrade Moscoso (Quito, October 4, 1905 – Quito, September 10, 1983) was an Ecuadorian journalist and dramatist. As a journalist, Andrade travelered throughout Mexico and Colombia, where he worked for the newspaper El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia), and published his book “La internacional negra en Colombia,” a collection of articles on the crisis in Colombia. He was also the editor of El Comercio from 1954-1982. As a dramatist, Andrade published “Suburbio,” a romantic evocation on the suburbs of Quito. In 1983 the president of Ecuador conferred on Andrade the Eugenio Espejo Prize in Culture.

Hernán Rodríguez Castelo

Hernán Rodríguez Castelo (Quito, June 1, 1933 – February 20, 2017) was a writer, historian of literature, art critic, essayist, and linguist. He wrote more than 120 books, and also wrote the foreword of books by other authors. He was a member of the Royal Spanish Academies of History and Language, and of the Ecuadorian Academies of History and Language.

Gustavo Vásconez Hurtado

Gustavo Vásconez Hurtado (Quito, April 3, 1911 – Quito, 1988) was an Ecuadorian novelist, biographer and diplomat. He returned to Ecuador in 1931 after finishing his education in England, France, and Switzerland. He published his first novel, “Vivien Christie,” in 1934, and his second, “Camino de las Landas,” in 1940. His first biography, “Pluma de Acero o La Vida Novelesca de Juan Montalvo,” was published in 1944. He was a member of the Bolivarian Society of Colombia, the Colombian Poetic Center, the Nariñense Academy of History, the Institute of Hispanic Culture, the Literary Legal Academy of Quito, and the House of Ecuadorian Culture. He was also the president of the Ecuadorian Writers Society.

Pedro Saad Herrería

Pedro Saad Herrería (Guayaquil, September 16, 1940 – Quito, June 6, 2014), was an Ecuadorian writer, filmmaker, politician, diplomat, historian and journalist. He was the son of Ecuador’s communist party leader, Pedro Saad Niyaim. He authored several books, such as “Historias del pueblo de Guayaquil” (2010), “Ecuador un país en imágenes/Ecuador a Country in Images” (2002, in Spanish/English bilingual edition), and “La caída de Abdalá” (1997), among others. In April 2014, Saad was honored by the Voltaire Masonic Lodge at the House of Ecuadorian Culture in Quito with the Cultural Merit Medal for his extensive and prolific intellectual career.

Eugenio Moreno Heredia

Eugenio Moreno Heredia (Cuenca, 1926—1997) was a poet, fiction writer, nonfiction writer, literary critic, university professor, magistrate judge and member of the communist party. He belonged to the literary groups “La Madrugada,” “Elan,” and “Tzánticos.” He was the son of the poet Alfonso Moreno Mora. His poems have been translated into several languages and published in anthologies.

Kristel Ralston

Kristel Ralston (Guayaquil, 1984) is a bestselling writer of more than 25 contemporary romance books. Her novel “Lazos de cristal” was one of the five manuscripts on the shortlist for the Second Literary Contest of Indie Authors (2015), sponsored by Amazon, Diario El Mundo, Audible and Esfera de Libros. This contest received more than 1200 manuscripts from different literary genres of Spanish speakers from 37 countries. Kristel was the only Latin-American among the five finalists of the contest. Ralston was also on the shortlist for the romantic novel contest Leer y Leer 2013, organized by Vestales publishing house from Argentina, and she is co-administrator of the literary blog Escribe Romántica. Ralston has published several novels. A prestigious Ecuadorian magazine nominated her as one of the Women of the Year 2015 in the Art category for her literary work.

Fanny Caicedo

Emma Fanny Caicedo Mier, also known as Fanny Caicedo de Cobo (Yaguachi, 1932 – circa 2001), was an Ecuadorian poet and teaching professor. Her books include Perlas Azules and Cantares del Silencio. She was a councilor of the Tungurahua Province. She wrote for several newspapers in the city of Ambato, including La Crónica, Avance, El Heraldo and others.

Gustavo Egüez Villacreses

Gustavo Egüez Villacreses (Ambato, March 26, 1923 – Guayaquil, May 29, 1981) was a poet and writer. Egüez received several awards for his poetry: In 1952 he won First Prize of the newspaper Diario La Nación (Guayaquil) for his poem “Romancero de Navidad′′ and he was bestowed the Gilded Orchid in the floral games of the magazine Radial Vida Porteña.

Susana Freire García

Susana Freire García is a writer, historian and cultural promoter. She was born in 1977. She has a doctorate in Jurisprudence from the Central University of Ecuador but does not practice law. She is a researcher and historian of various aspects of the city of Quito, and is part of the Proyecto Quitología (English: Quitology Project), founded by Ulises Estrella. She has published 9 books with themes related to the city. Her books include Tzantzismo: tierno e insolente (2008), Un maestro en tiempos difíciles (2013), and Caperuso y el violinista (2010), which won the Alicia Yánez Cossío Children’s Literature Contest. She is also the co-author of Cae el telón (2012). Freire’s father is the writer and historian Edgar Freire Rubio (Ecuador, 1947).

Tzantzismo

Tzantzismo was a cultural movement from Ecuador’s 1960s. It was founded in Quito by Marco Muñoz and Ulises Estrella, while the rest of the members came together throughout the decade. They were influenced by other Ecuadorian intellectuals such as Jorge Enrique Adoum, César Dávila Andrade and Agustín Cueva. Tzantzismo was expressed primarily in poetry, and to a lesser extent in fiction and theater. This literary revolutionary movement emerged in response to an alleged degradation and gentrification of Ecuadorian literature. An important book on the movement’s history was written by author Susana Freire García.

Antonio Preciado

Antonio Preciado Bedoya is an Afro-Ecuadorian poet, university professor and diplomat. He was born in Esmeraldas on May 21, 1941. He was director of the Municipal Center of Culture of the city of Esmeraldas and President of the Esmeraldas chapter of the House of Ecuadorian Culture. For 23 years he was director of the Department of Culture of the Central Bank of Ecuador and rector of the University of Esmeraldas. He has been dubbed the “Poet of the Diaspora.” Together with Nelson Estupiñán Bass, Preciado is considered one of the greatest exponents of Esmeralda poetry. Siete veces la vida (1967) is widely regarded as his most famous collection of poems. Some of his work has been translated into English, French and Romanian.