Josué Augusto Durán Hermida is a writer from Cuenca, Ecuador. In 2019, at the age of 25, his nonfiction book El abandono de la experiencia (originally titled Minutas de bulla under the pen name San Ambrosio) was awarded the XLIV Aurelio Espinosa Pólit National Prize for Literature. Durán currently resides in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
A family of writers and intellectuals
Josué Durán’s grandfather is the writer César Hermida Bustos (Cuenca, 1943). Hermida is known for his historical novels De nostalgias y olvidos (1996), El Cóndor y el colibrí (2008), La Cusinga, esencia del fuego y el viento (2018), La carta del último día (2014), and Amoríos (2019). He has also written two nonfiction books: De la vida morlaca (2014) and Sumak Kawsay y salud (2017). In an interview with Fabián Campoverde S., a reporter for El Tiempo newspaper, Hermida made a revelation: “It was my grandson who was so kind to proofread Amorios, a book I wrote which won the La Linares Prize [for Short Novel in 2019].” In the article Hermida shared that his grandson had become the proofreader of books and articles written by other family members. Josué Durán’s other family members include journalists and professors, such as his great grandfather Víctor Gerardo Aguilar, and his uncles Felipe and Gerardo Aguilar.
Works
Nonfiction
| Title | Year | Awards |
| El abandono de la experiencia | Quito, 2019 | Aurelio Espinosa Pólit National Prize for Literature |