Writers from Guayaquil - Ecuadorian Literature

Juan Eusebio Molestina

Juan Eusebio Molestina Matheus (Guayaquil, 1850 – ?) was an Ecuadorian poet and playwright known for his poetic dramas. His dramatic career crossed the year 1895, which marked the end of romanticism and the beginning of modernism in Ecuador. Molestina’s play Espinas y abrojos (Thistles and Thorns), performed in Guayaquil in 1898, exemplifies the theater known as criollista and is considered a precursor of realist and social theater. While the exact date of his death remains unknown, records indicate that he continued working at the Customs House in Guayaquil until at least 1922.

Francisco J. Falquez Ampuero

Francisco José Falquez Ampuero (Guayaquil, April 17, 1877 – Guayaquil, March 23, 1947) was an Ecuadorian poet, lawyer, diplomat, prosecutor, prose writer and French to Spanish translator. He was appointed Governor of León Province by President Eloy Alfaro (his godfather) and held various other public posts. His rich and extensive literary production includes verse, fiction and journalism. His sonnet collection, Gobelinos (1919), received praise from critics and literati, and is regarded as his best work. He participated in the movements that culminated in the bloody Revolution of November 15, 1922, hence the government of President José Luis Tamayo (1920 – 1924) ordered his exile to Lima, Peru, where he remained until 1923. He then returned to Guayaquil to practice law.

Miguel Valverde

Miguel Valverde Letamendi (Guayaquil, December 6, 1852 – Rome, April 19, 1920) was an Ecuadorian politician, diplomat, writer, poet, journalist and translator. He is considered a precursor of modernismo in Ecuador. In 1890 he was the Director of the Municipal Library of Guayaquil. In 1915 he published “Libro de versos,” containing a translation of Victor Hugo’s “Religions et religion,” a political tract supporting belief in God but attacking organized religion, which caused a scandal among followers of the church. Due to his political views he was often arrested and many times exiled. He also served the country in various governmental posts during the presidencies of his allies. In 1883, General Eloy Alfaro appointed him Minister of the Interior, War and Foreign Relations of the Governments of Manabí and Esmeraldas. In 1901, General Leonidas Plaza appointed him Minister of the Interior and Police.

Miguel E. Neira

Miguel E. Neira was a modernist poet and journalist from Guayaquil, Ecuador. He became well-known with his 1907 book “Baladas de la Miseria” (Misery Ballads). His works were published in magazines like “Alto Relieves” and “El Guante,” a publication he helped to found. Transitioning to public administration, Neira eventually stepped back from the literary world. However, his literary efforts, especially through “El Guante,” significantly shaped modernist literature in Ecuador and supported the country’s intellectual independence from Spain.

Victor Hugo Escala

Victor Hugo Escala Camacho (Guayaquil, June 29, 1887 – April 30, 1964) was a poet, journalist, historian and diplomat. Along with Enrique Baquerizo Moreno and Manuel J. Calle, in 1907 he plotted an uprising against General Eloy Alfaro, which led to his imprisonment and exile. Upon returning to Guayaquil in 1909, he went to work for the literary section of El Telégrafo newspaper. His first poetry book “Motivos Galantes,” was published in Chile in 1915. After the 1918 armistice, he traveled to Paris where the great poet Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño served as his guide. One night they were invited to lunch at Gonzalo Zaldumbide‘s house, and the latter urged him to write. The outcome was “Kaleidoscope,” (1922) a travel journal with prints and landscapes of Europe and the East.

Emilio Gallegos del Campo

Emilio Gallegos del Campo (Guayaquil, September 20, 1875 – May 15, 1914) was a poet, playwright, journalist and diplomat. In 1898 General Eloy Alfaro, who was a friend of his family and called him “Emilito,” appointed him Consul of Ecuador in London, a post which he held until 1901. In Europe, he was decorated by the French government with the Legion of Honor. Together with his brother, he founded several newspapers, including “América Modernista,” which published poets of the modernismo movement. His brother was the poet Joaquín Gallegos Del Campo whose son was the celebrated novelist Joaquin Gallegos Lara.

Adolfo Hidalgo Nevares

Adolfo Hidalgo Nevares, sometimes spelled Nevarez, (Guayaquil, March 18, 1891 – Quito, 1934) was a doctor, writer and poet. Under the pseudonym Máximo de Bretal he wrote articles for El Guante magazine on topics such as politics, literature and poetry. He also wrote for El Telégrafo of Guayaquil and El Universitario of Quito. In 1920 he was appointed Deputy of Guayas. In 1925 he became a professor at the University of Guayaquil’s new Dentistry and Veterinary schools, and in 1926 he was named Minister of Public Education. He led a bohemian life and had an on and off again addiction to morphine which he sometimes used in the company of some of the members of the Decapitated Generation, a group of young Ecuadorian poets who died young by suicide. He too died by suicide in 1934, at the age of 43.

Nicolás Augusto González

Nicolás Augusto González Tola, also N.A. González (Guayaquil, April 14, 1858 – Buenos Aires, Argentina, January 18, 1918) was an Ecuadorian writer, playwright, novelist, journalist, poet, historian and diplomat. His plays in verse are among his best known works, which include, “Hojas secas,” “Entre el amor y el honor,” and “Amor y Patria,” which he co-wrote with Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno (President of Ecuador from 1916-1920). “Cuestión Histórica, el Asesinato del Gran Mariscal Ayacucho,” (written between 1887 and 1889), is perhaps his most important and controversial work, in which he accuses General Juan José Flores of being behind the assassination of Antonio José de Sucre, prompting hatred and persecution from Flores’ son Antonio Flores Jijón (President of Ecuador from 1888-1892). Due to his political views and polemic writing he was exiled to other countries, such as Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and Spain. From 1908-1913 he lived in Spain as a diplomat, and published there his poetry book, “Humo y cenizas” (1908) and his novel “La Llaga” (1908). He returned to Guayaquil in 1917 where a special committee chaired by José Luis Tamayo (President of Ecuador from 1920-1924) awarded him the “Golden Lyre”.

Miguel Ángel Granado Guarnizo

Miguel Ángel Granado Guarnizo (Guayaquil, 1895 – Guayaquil, 1955) was an Ecuadorian modernist poet, playwright, and literary critic. He began publishing poetry and literary critiques as early as 1912 and was a key figure in Ecuador’s early 20th-century literary scene, co-founding the influential El Telégrafo Literario (1913). He is best known for his play El Hermano Cándido (1919), his biographical and critical work Fisonomías (1914), and his collection of critical essays Horas de Luz (1917). Granado Guarnizo was part of a close-knit literary circle that included his friend, the poet Medardo Ángel Silva. His career was tragically cut short in 1926 when he was diagnosed with a mental illness, leading to his long-term institutionalization until his death. He was the brother of the poet Carlos F. Granado Guarnizo.

José Antonio Falconí Villagómez

José Antonio Falconí Villagómez, aka Jose A. Falconí Villagómez or J.A. Falconí Villagómez, (Guayaquil, May 26, 1894 – Guayaquil, 1967) was an Ecuadorian poet, literary critic, translator, and medical doctor. In 1910 he began publishing his poems in the magazine El Guante, and by 1913 in El Telégrafo. In 1916 he founded the magazine Renacimiento, in which he published his poem, “Ruth adora a los cisnes.” He was greatly influenced by the French Symbolists of his time and was a champion of the avant-garde in poetry. In 1921 he published, “Arte Poética nº 2,” a dadaist poem which introduced the European avant-garde into Ecuadorian letters. In 1953 he was designated a Member of the House of Ecuadorian Culture. In 1964 he was decorated with the National Order of Merit, and in 1965 the city of Guayaquil conferred on him the Gold Medal of Literary Merit.

José Joaquín Pino de Ycaza

José Joaquín Pino de Ycaza (Guayaquil, January 30, 1902 – Guayaquil, February 25, 1959) was an Ecuadorian poet, educator, historian and politician. Since as early as 14 years old he began publishing his poems in national literary magazines such as Patria and Helios, and later also in Juventud (Quito) and Proteos (Guayaquil). He directed the magazine Hermes, which published the most prominent early 20th century poets of Ecuador, such as Wenceslao Pareja, Miguel E. Neira, José Antonio Falconí, and his friend Medardo Angel Silva. In 1984 the Guayas branch of the House of Ecuadorian Culture published a collection of his poems in a small book entitled “Sándalo.”

Camilo Destruge

Camilo Destruge Illingworth (Guayaquil, October 20, 1863 – Guayaquil, February 26, 1929) was an Ecuadorian historian, journalist, and chronicler. He served as the first director of the Museo Municipal de Guayaquil, where he helped preserve the city’s historical artifacts, and he also directed the Municipal Library for many years. Destruge authored numerous historical works, including La Entrevista de Bolívar y San Martín (1918) and the five-volume Álbum Biográfico Ecuatoriano (1903–1905). He contributed to and edited various newspapers, such as El Telégrafo and La Nación. A member of the National Academy of History, he was also honored by the Venezuelan government with the Orden del Libertador. Declared “Cronista Emérito de la Ciudad” (Honorary Chronicler of the City), Destruge’s legacy is commemorated through a historical institution, a school, and a street named after him in Guayaquil.

Víctor Manuel Rendón

Víctor Manuel Rendón Pérez (Guayaquil, December 5, 1859 – Guayaquil, October 9, 1940) was an Ecuadorian writer, poet, novelist, playwright, biographer, translator, doctor, diplomat, pianist, and composer. He wrote the novel Lorenzo Cilda in 1906 in French, later translating it into Spanish; in 1921, he was accepted into the Ecuadorian Academy of Language, and in 1925, the Académie Française awarded him a Gold Medal for the work. Rendón translated numerous works, including Olmedo, homme d’état et poète américain, chantre de Bolívar (1905), a French-language work combining a biography of José Joaquín de Olmedo with Rendón’s translations of Olmedo’s poetry. Fluent in four languages, Rendón published over forty books in Spanish and French, with works released in France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Ecuador.

Wenceslao Pareja

Dr. Wenceslao Pareja y Pareja (Guayaquil, September 1, 1880 – Quito, February 26, 1947) was an Ecuadorian doctor, medical researcher, writer and poet. As a doctor, he was one of the world’s leading experts on yellow fever, and was nominated for a joint Nobel Prize in Science for his research work with Hideyo Noguchi. Pareja published 4 books of poems. His 1912 polemic poem “Exodo,” which was published in El Guante magazine, is among the first poems to introduce modernismo in Ecuador. Pareja’s poem “La voz del río” from his first book, Voces Lejanas y otros poemas (1915), best exemplifies modernismo in his poems.

Abel Romeo Castillo

Abel Romeo Castillo y Castillo (Guayaquil, January, 22 1904 – Guayaquil, November 11, 1996) was an Ecuadorian writer, historian, biographer, journalist and poet. He was the son of José Abel Castillo Albornoz, the former owner of the newspaper El Telégrafo. Castillo earned a doctoral degree in history in 1931 from the Central University of Madrid, Spain. Among his more notable books are his biographical works on Medardo Ángel Silva, Aurora Estrada i Ayala and José Joaquín de Olmedo, to name a few. His poems “Romance de mi destino” and “Romance criollo de la niña guayaquileña,” were turned into popular pasillo songs. Castillo was one of the founders of the Society of Independent Artists and Writers, and of the Guayas branch of the House of Ecuadorian Culture. Castillo was a member of the Ecuadorian Academies of Language and History.