Poets - Ecuadorian Literature

Victoria Vásconez Cuvi

Victoria Vásconez Cuvi (Latacunga, September 7, 1891 – Quito, May 29, 1939) was an Ecuadorian writer and feminist. She was part of a literary circle that included Zoila Ugarte de Landívar and Morayma Ofyr Carvajal. Vásconez Cuvi was an influential figure in her time, having served as a member of various organizations such as the Bolivarian Society and the International Commission of the Second Pan American Congress. Her works include “Ensayos Literarios,” “Problemas Educativos,” “Vida de Mariana de Jesús,” and “Actividades Sociales y Domésticas de la Mujer.” A school in Latacunga, Unidad Educativa Victoria Vasconez Cuvi, bears her name.

Raúl Rojas Hidalgo

Raúl Rojas Hidalgo (born 1944) is an Ecuadorian poet and novelist. His collection of poetry, “Como el agua” [Like Water], was published by the House of Ecuadorian Culture in 1988. In 1990, his novel “Una buena razón para matar” [A Good Reason To Kill] was featured in the First Ecuadorian Novel Biennial. In 2004, Rojas published another collection of poetry called “Salmos de amor a las seis de la tarde” [Love Psalms at Six in the Evening].

Tamara Mejía Molina

Tamara Mejía Molina (Guayaquil, 1987) is an Ecuadorian poet and art critic. She is the author of several books, including “Esto soy yo, Marakaramazov,” “Historia esculpida de Manuel Velastegui,” and “Últimos días de una herida,” and has written more than 20 art criticism articles for cultural newspapers. Molina’s work as a poet has brought her international recognition, and she has been invited to participate in various poetry festivals in Ecuador and abroad. In 2022, her poetry book “Últimos días de una herida,” was awarded the Ileana Espinel Cedeño Poetry Festival Award.

Luis Delgadillo

Luis Delgadillo Avilés (Guayaquil, 1942 – September 13, 2022) was an Ecuadorian poet and journalist. He was part of a group of poets dubbed, “Generación Huracanada” [Hurricane Generation]. In 1971, he won the third national poetry prize. His poetry books include: “El rayo que ilumina” (1971), “Poemas de la marcha” (1977), and “Carta para un hijo y otros poemas” (1997). His non-fiction books include: “Leonardo Escobar Bravo, El ministro de los campesinos” (2006) and “La pepa de oro y el montubio” (2007), which focused on themes of the peasant class. He was a member of the literary section of the House of Ecuadorian Culture in Guayas.

Francisco Pérez Febres-Cordero

Francisco Pérez Febres-Cordero (Guayaquil, July 18, 1934 – Ibidem, August 31, 2010) was an Ecuadorian poet and journalist whose distinguished career at El Universo newspaper lasted four decades (1958-1998). Among his many accomplishments at El Universo was the creation of the Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest in 1959, which is regarded as one of the most prestigious poetry awards in Ecuador. He authored several poetry books, beginning with “Polvo de estrellas” [Star Dust] in 1951. His “Obras completas” [Complete Works] was published posthumously in 2020. From 1992 to 1998 he was Vice-director and Chairman of the Board of El Universo. In 1998, the year he retired from El Universo, he and one of his sons launched a bookstore named El Librero inside the Ríocentro Ceibos Mall, which, in 2008, they sold to the Librimundi group. In 2012, a bust of him was erected on “Avenida del Periodista” (Avenue of the Journalist) in Guayaquil.

Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel

Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel (Loja, September 29, 1889 – Guayaquil, February 20, 1974) was an Ecuadorian physician, poet, and activist who was a pioneer for women’s rights in Ecuador and Latin America, becoming the first woman to vote in the country and the continent in 1924. As a doctor, she also became the first woman to earn a Doctorate in Medicine in Ecuador, using her platform to fight for women’s rights and improve healthcare for women and children. She was an active member of feminist organizations and expressed her views through poetry. Her legacy as one of the most important women in Ecuadorian history endures, inspiring future generations to fight for gender equality. Matilde Hidalgo was honored by Google on November 21, 2019, with a Google Doodle commemorating what would have been her 130th birthday.

Freddy Ayala Plazarte

Freddy Ayala Plazarte (Aláquez, Latacunga, Ecuador, 1983) is an Ecuadorian poet, essayist, and university professor. In 2015, his poetry book “Rebeliones al filo de una sinfonía” won the prestigious Jorge Carrera Andrade National Poetry Prize. His latest poetry book, “Un siglo en el vientre de las vasijas” (2021) was a finalist of the 2nd edition of the Vicente Huidobro International Poetry Award, Valparaíso. He has written several literary studies, including “Vientos paralelos: acotaciones sobre cultura y literatura latinoamericana” (2015) and two studies on poet Hugo Mayo. He was a member of the literary workshops at the House of Ecuadorian Culture during 2005-2007. He was a member of the literary group la.kbzuhela of Quito. He is a professor at the Central University of Ecuador.

Francisco Delcasty

Francisco Delcasty was a revolutionary Ecuadorian poet and member of the Communist Party of Ecuador. He authored his most famous poem a day after the National Army massacred over a thousand striking workers during the Guayaquil general strike of 1922, which starts with the line “El hambre va en desfile” [Hunger is marching]. In 1970, the House of Ecuadorian Culture published a collection of his poems entitled, “Alpha y omega: apoesía.” The renowned Guayaquilean poet Sergio Román Armendáriz dedicated a poem to him entitled, “Puerto Rico en el Llanto” in the book “Club 7” (1954). Román was friends with Delcasty during the 1950’s and said in an interview that he believed Delcasty was likely a Spaniard (born with the last name Castillo) who was considered Ecuadorian because of his close ties to Ecuador and its politics.

Rafael Larrea Insuasti

Rafael Larrea Insuasti (Quito, 1942 – Ibidem, April 22, 1995) was an Ecuadorian poet, journalist, political essayist, editor, songwriter, music composer, and social activist. He is known as a social and revolutionary poet who was a member of the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE). For over 20 years, he was the editor-in-chief of the Party’s newspaper, En Marcha, and created the PCMLE’s first propaganda manual. In the 1960s, along with other young leftist poets, he founded the Tzántico group. His poetry books include “Levantapolvos” (1969), “Nuestra es la vida” (1978), “Campanas de bronce” (1983), “Bajo el sombrero del poeta” (1988), “Nosotros, la luna, los caballos” (1995), and “La casa de los siete patios” (1996, published posthumously). In addition to political activity, Larrea graduated as a journalist from the School of Information Sciences of the Central University of Ecuador and was a language teacher. His political, cultural, and literary writings were collected in a book entitled, “Escritos polticos” (2007), published by the PCMLE Commission for Art and Culture. He also penned a number of popular songs, such as “Capishca de la Libertad,” “La Negra Clara Inés,” and others. A public basic education school in Duran, Ecuador, bears his name.

Katerine Ortega

Katerine Ortega (Quito, 1986) is an Ecuadorian poet, short story writer, and audiovisual communicator. Her works include: “Somos fuego” (2012), (a compilation of poems by various poets), “Naranja entera” (micropoems), La promesa” (videopoems), and she also contributed to the books “Ciencia y simbólica andina ecuatorial” and “Loma Grande: Memoria Histórica y Cultural” (section on mythology). Her stories and poetry have appeared in literary magazines such as Sapo (Chile) and Matapalo (Ecuador), as well as the anthology “Amor y soledad” (Spain). She was part of the literary workshops of the Benjamín Carrión House of Ecuadorian Culture, the Ecuadorian Society of Writers, Kafka Escuela de Escritores, among others. In 2020, she released “Tarasca,” her first collection of short stories.

Modesto Ponce Maldonado

Modesto Ponce Maldonado (Quito, 1938) is an Ecuadorian novelist, short story writer, and businessman. He began writing fiction in his later years. At the age of 60, he published his first collection of short stories, “También las arcillas” (1997), which was followed by a novel, “El palacio del diablo” [The Devil’s Palace] (2005), which won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Prize for best novel of the year. The novel’s title was taken from the name of a brothel that formerly stood in colonial Quito’s La Ronda neighborhood. Using the pen name Sergio Lozada, his second novel, “La casa del desván,” was shortlisted for the prestigious Premio Iberoamericano Planeta-Casa de América de Narrativa award. The novel, released by Editorial Planeta in 2008, is a first-person account of a schizophrenic man’s thoughts while he is institutionalized for his condition. In 2017, his novel “Adela” received honorable mention at the La Linares Short Novel Award. Ponce has also contributed to various literary magazines, including El Búho, Eskeletra, Kipus and Letras del Ecuador.

Jorge Luis Pérez Armijos

Jorge Luis Pérez Armijos (Guayaquil, 1987) is an Ecuadorian, poet, essayist, editor, and translator. He has authored 4 poetry books, including “Rimas sin sarcasmos” (2012), “Primavera en invierno” (2014), “Lira bien temperada” (2016), and “Clases de catalán” (2018). His best known work is perhaps “Aquel que pudo ver lo Profundo” (2019), a poetic translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. In 2020 he published, “La risa: Ensayo sobre el significado de lo cómico,” a French-to-Spanish annotated translation of “Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique” [Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic], a collection of 3 essays by French philosopher Henri Bergson first published in 1900 in the French literary magazine Revue de Paris. He has also published a translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, entitled “Variaciones Shakespeare” (2017), and Shakespeare’s narrative poem, “Venus y Adonis” (2021).

Alberto Ordoñez Ortíz

Alberto Ordoñez Ortíz (Cuenca, March 16, 1942 – Ibidem, August 29, 2022) was an Ecuadorian poet, writer, and lawyer. During the last years of his life he worked as an opinion columnist for the daily El Mercurio of Cuenca. From 1962 – 2004 he published at least 10 poetry books. As a poet, he won various awards, including First Prize in the 1963 National Poetry Contest sponsored by the State University of Cuenca, Second Prize in the 1978 Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest for Perfil del hombre y su desvelo, and the First Prizes in the 1992 Poetry Contests promoted by the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute of Ecuador. In 2003, the Municipality of Cuenca awarded him the “Fray Vicente Solano” Award, an award given to the best poet of the year in Cuenca, and in that same year, the National Congress of Ecuador awarded him the “Vicente Rocafuerte” Prize, in recognition of his literary work and contribution to Ecuadorian poetry.

Eduardo Muñoz Valdebenito

Eduardo Muñoz Valdebenito was an Ecuadorian poet who in 1977 won 3rd Prize in the Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest of the newspaper El Universo for his poem “La intimidad.” His prize-winning poem was published in “Poesía ecuatoriana del siglo XX” (Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1979).

Bernard Fougères

Bernard Fougères, born Bernard Victor Theophile Isidore Fougères Julliot (France, 1934 – Guayaquil, May 5, 2018) was a French journalist, poet, and TV host who resided in Ecuador since May 1, 1965. His poem “Guayaquil de mil hojas” [Guayaquil of a thousand pages] won the 2nd Prize of the 1977 Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest. His winning poem was published in the anthology “Poesía ecuatoriana del siglo XX: Años 1976, 1977, 1978” (Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Núcleo del Guayas, 1976). He worked as a TV personality for more than 50 years in shows such as El Show de Bernard and Bernard en la noche.