Writers who committed suicide - Ecuadorian Literature

David Ledesma Vásquez

David Ledesma Vásquez (Guayaquil, December 17, 1934 – March 30, 1961) was an Ecuadorian poet, writer, journalist, stage actor, and radio drama and radio soap opera actor. Although his work went unnoticed for several years after his death, it eventually acquired a cult following. He belonged to Club 7, a group of poets from the port city of Guayaquil in the 1950s. He committed suicide by hanging at the age of 27 in 1961. He left behind several unpublished works, including one ominously titled “La risa del ahorcado” [The Hanged Man’s Laugh]. Ileana Espinel Cedeño, a fellow Club 7 member, oversaw the posthumous publication of his poetry collection “Cuaderno de Orfeo” [Orfeo’s Notebook] in 1962.

Medardo Ángel Silva

Medardo Ángel Silva Rodas (Guayaquil, June 8, 1898 – Guayaquil, June 10, 1919) was an Ecuadorian poet, writer, and journalist, known as one of the most significant members of the Generación Decapitada (Decapitated Generation), a group of modernist poets in early 20th-century Ecuador. His work, heavily influenced by French symbolism and the modernist movement led by Rubén Darío, explored themes of love, melancholy, and death. Silva published his poetry in his collection El árbol del bien y del mal (1918) and gained national recognition with his poem “El alma en los labios,” later made famous as a song by Julio Jaramillo. His tragic death at 21, widely believed to be a suicide, remains shrouded in mystery, further enshrining his place in Ecuadorian literary history.

Humberto Fierro

Humberto Fierro Jarrín (Quito, June 17, 1890 – Quito, August 23, 1929) was an Ecuadorian poet of modernismo, a literary movement that took place primarily during the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century in the Spanish-speaking world. He was close friends with Arturo Borja, Ernesto Noboa, and other tormented poets of the early twentieth century who committed suicide and were thus dubbed the “Decapitated Generation.” This group was heavily influenced by Rubén Darío’s modernismo movement as well as 19th-century French romantic poetry. Fierro’s best known poems can be found in his poetry collections, “El laud en el valle,” published in 1919, and “La Velada Palatina,” published posthumously in 1949. He spent almost all of his working life as a clerk in a Public Ministry Office. He died at the age of 39 in 1929 from a mountain fall, which some believe was suicide.

Oswaldo Calisto Rivera

Oswaldo Calisto Rivera, known by his pen name Cachibache, often spelled Cachivache (Quito, September 22, 1979 – October 10, 2000) was an Ecuadorian poet and painter who died of suicide at the age of 21. In 2001 Cachibache’s only book of poems “Rojo encanto de la marmota” was published posthumously by the House of Ecuadorian Culture in Quito. He also completed a yet unpublished poetic trilogy which consists of: “La cachiva,” “Comible Sr. Lucas Alombrey” and “La falta de pantuflismo.” Cachibache’s poems have been included in several anthologies, such as Memorias del primer festival de poesía joven Hugo Mayo (2005), 13 poetas ecuatorianos nacidos en los 70 (2008), and Premonición a las puertas (2012).

Dolores Veintimilla

Ignacia María de los Dolores Veintimilla de Galindo (Quito, July 12, 1829 – Cuenca, May 23, 1857) was an Ecuadorian poet and essayist known for her contributions to 19th-century Romanticism and early feminist thought. Raised in an aristocratic family, she received a formal education and later married Colombian physician Sixto Galindo. Her poetry, marked by themes of sorrow, unrequited love, and social justice, reflected her personal struggles and progressive views, including her opposition to the death penalty. Isolated and vilified for her outspokenness, Veintimilla tragically took her own life at the age of 27.

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.