Short story writers - Ecuadorian Literature

Fernando Chaves

Fernando Chaves Reyes (Otavalo, February 13, 1902 – Quito, 1999) was an Ecuadorian novelist, essayist, journalist, diplomat, and politician. He is best known for his novel Plata y bronce (1927), which pioneered the indigenist movement in Ecuadorian literature, depicting the social struggles of indigenous communities. His literary work influenced future generations, including Jorge Icaza, author of Huasipungo. In addition to his literary career, Chaves served as Ecuador’s ambassador to several countries and held the position of Minister of Education. In 1991, he was awarded the National Grand Cross of the Order of Merit.

Vicente Cabrera Funes

Vicente Cabrera Funes (March 28, 1944 – July 6, 2014) was an Ecuadorian novelist, essayist and Spanish professor at at the University of Minnesota Morris. He received his B.A. from the Pontifical Catholic University (Quito, Ecuador), and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. He wrote several novels and short story collections, all of which were set principally in Ecuador. Critiquing Cabrera’s novel “Los malditos amantes de Carolina” (2005), George R. McMurray, Professor Emeritus Colorado State University, wrote that it “represents an ingenious example of metafiction, that is, a novel that dramatizes its own creative process.” Funes also wrote several notable essays, including “La nueva ficción hispanoamericana: a través de M.A. Asturias y G. García Márquez” (1972) and “Tres poetas a la luz de la metáfora: Salinas, Aleixandre y Guillén” (1975).

Ney Yépez Cortés

Ney Yépez Cortés (Quito, 1968) is an Ecuadorian novelist, poet, journalist, songwriter, screenwriter, lecturer, and teacher of Tai Chi, Reiki and Qi Gong. He is best known as a science fiction, adventure and mystery writer. He published his first poems in 1990 in Ixo Facto, a surrealist literary magazine. He has since written 5 novels and 3 books of short stories. In 2001 he published his first book of short stories entitled “Mundos abiertos,” which was critically acclaimed. In 2006 he published his first novel “Las sombras de la Casa Mitre,” and 2009 he published its sequel “El árbol de las brujas.” His latest novel “El secreto de la reliquia sagrada,” a work of adventure and mystery, was published in 2019.

Eugenia Viteri

Blanca Eugenia Viteri Segura (Guayaquil, July 4, 1928 – Quito, September 21, 2023) is an Ecuadorian novelist, short story writer, anthologist, women’s rights activist, and teacher. Viteri has published over a dozen books including novels, short story collections, and anthologies. Her work has been translated into English, Russian, and Bulgarian. She has been a member of the House of Ecuadorian Culture since 1962. She founded the Manuela Sáenz Cultural Foundation in 1983. Through her work with the foundation, Viteri became one of the most important defenders of women’s rights in Ecuador. In 2008, President Rafael Correa honored her with the Rosa Campuzano National Prize. She was among the first to receive the newly created award, which recognizes the work of noteworthy Ecuadorian women.

Pedro Jorge Vera

Pedro Jorge Vera (Guayaquil, June 16, 1914 – Guayaquil, March 5, 1999) was an Ecuadorian journalist, novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, university professor, and a politician from the Communist Party of Ecuador. He published and contributed to several controversial newspapers and magazines, such as “La Calle”, with the writer Alejandro Carrión, and “La Mañana”. He remained throughout his life a close friend of Cuban president Fidel Castro. Vera was the paternal uncle of Prima Ballerina Noralma Vera Arrata.

Javier Vásconez

Javier Vásconez (Quito, 1966) is an Ecuadorian novelist, short story writer, and editor. In 1989, his collection of short tales “El hombre de la mirada oblicua” [The Man with the Sideways Glance] won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Prize, and in 1982 his book of short stories “Ciudad lejana” [A Distant City] was a finalist for the Casa de las Américas Prize (Cuba). His stories have been translated into other languages, including English, French, German, Swiss, Hebrew, Bulgarian, and Greek. In 2022, he was awarded the Eugenio Espejo Prize, which is Ecuador’s highest national literary award.

Yanna Hadatty

Yanna Hadatty Mora (Guayaquil, 1969) is an Ecuadorian short story writer, essayist, and literary critic. Based in Mexico since 1992, she earned her Doctorate in Ibero-American Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her work focuses on the study of Latin American avant-garde literature, particularly in Ecuador and Mexico, and she has published extensively on these subjects, including the critical essays Autofagia y narración (2003) and La ciudad paroxista (2009). Hadatty has also contributed to numerous anthologies and continues to teach and conduct research at UNAM.

Juan Andrade Heymann

Juan Andrade Heymann (Quito, December 18, 1945) is an Ecuadorian writer, novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright. His short story El lagarto en la mano (1965) and his novel Las tertulias de San Li Tun (1993) expressed social change.

María Clara Sharupi Jua

María Clara Sharupi Jua (Morona Santiago, 1964) is an Ecuadorian writer, poet, and translator, who writes in Spanish and Shuar, an indigenous language of Ecuador’s Amazon basin. She writes poetry in Shuar, while translating it into Spanish in order to reach a wider audience. She co-wrote the book “Amanece en nuestras vidas” (2011), the first anthology of poetry from Ecuadorian indigeneous women writers, and wrote the short story collection “Tarimiat” (2019), which was written in Shuar, Spanish, and English. Sharupi Jua also works as a translator and radio and television presenter in Shuar and Spanish. She was a member of the translation team that worked on the official Shuar translation of Ecuador’s Constitution. She lives in Quito, where she has also worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Migration on indigenous issues.

Aminta Buenaño

Aminta del Rosario Buenaño Rugel (Santa Lucía, Ecuador, September 27, 1958) is an Ecuadorian writer, journalist, diplomat, and politician. She is celebrated for her literary works that explore women’s experiences and feminist themes, with notable titles such as La mansión de los sueños (1985) and Mujeres divinas (2006). As vice-president of Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly, she played a pivotal role in drafting the 2008 Constitution, advocating for gender equality. Buenaño has also served as Ecuador’s ambassador to Spain and Nicaragua. Among her many accolades is the prestigious Jauja International Short Story Prize of Valladolid (1979). Her most recent novel, Un blues para Roberto (2022), delves into themes of love and loss, and was presented at the 2022 International Book Fair in Guayaquil.

César Dávila Andrade

César Dávila Andrade (Cuenca, Ecuador, October 5, 1918 – Caracas, Venezuela, May 2, 1967) was an Ecuadorian poet, writer and essayist, usually acclaimed as an outstanding member of the 1940 Madrugada Group. His interest in the strange and marvelous earned him the sobriquet,“el Fakir.” He is best known for his poetry, although he also wrote short novels, stories, essays and numerous newspaper articles. His works displayed elements of Neo-romanticism and surrealism. His best known poem, “Boletín y elegía de las mitas,” originally published in 1959, marked a milestone in Ecuadorian and Latin American literature. He spent much of his life in Caracas, Venezuela where he worked in the editorial staff of Zona Franca. For several years he served as cultural attaché at the Ecuadorian embassy. Death and transfiguration was a theme in his poems. In 1967, he committed suicide at the age of 48.

Sonia Manzano Vela

Sonia Manzano Vela is an Ecuadorian poet, novelist, short story writer and pianist. She was born in Guayaquil on February 27, 1947. Her poetry collection Carcoma con forma de paloma (1986) achieved commercial success. Her short story collection Flujo escarlata (1999) won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara National Fiction Prize. Her first novel, Y no abras la ventana todavía (1993) won the first prize in the “Biennial Ecuadorian Novel” contest. Her last novel, Solo de vino a piano lento (2013), was acclaimed by literary critic Antonio Sacoto as the best novel written by an Ecuadorian woman so far in the 21st century.

Jorge Luis Cáceres

Jorge Luis Cáceres is an Ecuadorian short story writer, editor and anthologist. He was born in 1982 in Quito. In 2013 he published a best-selling anthology titled No entren al 1408, a tribute to the “master of horror” Stephen King. The original edition of the book consisted of 22 Spanish-language horror stories by authors from various countries. Subsequent editions contained stories by authors of up to 30 countries, including Ecuador, Cuba, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. In 2012, he was recognized as one of “the 34 Latin American authors of unquestionable literary quality” at the Guadalajara International Book Fair.

Magaly Vanégas Coveña

Magaly Vanégas Coveña (Cuenca, 1953) is an Ecuadorian poet, short story writer, journalist, philologist and teacher. Following her studies at the University of Cuenca, she received a scholarship to study at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute in the former Soviet Union, as well as at the Faculty of History and Philology at Moscow University. She has taught Spanish at Moscow University and Russian at Cuenca’s Ecuadorian-Soviet Cultural Institute. She is currently a teacher at the Manuel J. Calle National School in Cuenca. She is a member of the Ibero-American Poetry Academy in Cuenca. Her poems are known for their short verses and themes of absence, loneliness, nostalgia, and simple things in nature, for example: “A bird / has hung its nest / in the shadow / of a balcony” (from Espejos de la imaginación, 2000).

María del Carmen Garcés

María del Carmen Garcés is a writer, translator, journalist and historian. She was born in Latacunga in 1958. She has lived in Bolivia, Argentina, United States, Cuba and Chile. One of her best known books is Conversaciones con Pombo: Combatiente de la guerrilla del Che en Bolivia (2011), about her conversations with Harry Villegas Tamayo, aka Pombo, a guerilla fighter who accompanied the revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia.