Biografías de Escritores Salvadoreños

Alberto Masferrer

Alberto masferrer

(Vicente Alberto Masferrer Mónico; Tecapa, 1868 - San Salvador, 1932)

Salvadoran writer and intellectual. With a controversial personality,
he was one of the most dynamic figures in the cultural and political
life of his country and exerted a strong influence on the younger
generations.

Son of a Salvadoran citizen, Leonor Mónico, and of a Spaniard living

in El Salvador, Enrique Masferrer, his father initially refused to
recognize him as a scion; later she agreed to acknowledge his
paternity and Alberto went on to live at the house of his father. He
studied his first letters at the Jucuapa school, and, when he was ten
years old, he entered a college founded in San Salvador by the French
pedagogue Agustine Charvin. In 1883 he was sent by his father to
Guatemala in retaliation for having refused to carry out a punishment
that he had imposed. The very young Masferrer refused parental custody
and wandered around Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, working in
trades such as peddling.

He then taught in the Nicaraguan department of Rivas, from where he

was sent to the island of Ometepe to give classes in the prison that
stood there. Later he moved to San Rafael del Sur, where he assumed
the direction of the Men's School. In 1885 he moved to Costa Rica,
where he barely stayed a year, and in 1886 he returned to his native
country and taught at El Carrizal, where he resided for three years.
In 1889 he was appointed director of the Jucuapa school, the same one
in which Masferrer himself had received his first classes.

In 1890 he was appointed deputy director of the school in Sensutepeque

and archivist of the Contaduría Mayor in San Salvador; two years
later, he assumed the direction of the Official Gazette, and in 1900
he became secretary of the National Institute, a position he left a
year later, when he was appointed consul of El Salvador in Buenos
Aires (Argentina). He thus began a diplomatic career that would lead
him to occupy the Salvadoran consulates in Santiago de Chile (1902),
San José de Costa Rica (1907) and Antwerp (Belgium, 1910). He was a
delegate from El Salvador to the Hague Conference (1912), a
collaborator in the Second Scientific Congress held in Washington in
1915, advisor to the Ministry of Public Instruction and director of
the Iels Institute (1916).

His literary and essay work developed in parallel. In 1923 he became

one of the editorialists of the newspaper El Día, and in 1928, in the
company of the writers and journalists Alberto Guerra Trigueros and
José Bernal, he founded the newspaper Patria in the Salvadoran
capital, where he took charge of the editorial section and from an
applauded column entitled Vivir. His journalistic works published in
this newspaper were compiled after several years by the poet and
literary critic Pedro Geoffroy Rivas, and published by the publisher
of the University of El Salvador. Masferrer also shone as a journalist
in Chilean territory, where, under the pseudonym "Lutrín", he signed a
humorous column that appeared in the newspapers El Chileno, from
Santiago, and El Mercurio, from Valparaíso.
In the last years of his life, Alberto Masferrer was involved in the
politics of his country. He ardently participated in the electoral
campaign of 1929 and 1930 in favor of the Labor party, supporting the
candidate Arturo Araujo, who, elected president in 1931, was
immediately overthrown by the coup of General Maximiliano Hernández
Martínez. The subsequent massacres at the hands of the Salvadoran army
disappointed Masferrer, who had to leave for Guatemala and Honduras
mired in poverty and disease.

cultural and social program. This episode plunged the writer into a
bitter disappointment that was exacerbated by his health problems and
by the exhaustion caused by the trip to Guatemala.

Arturo Ambrogi

Arturo Ambrogi

(San Salvador, 1878 - 1936) Salvadoran writer. The appreciation for

the customs of his native country, El Salvador, and the parallel
attraction that he felt for the culture of distant lands uniquely
marked the creative work of Arturo Ambrogi. The quality of his work
and his scathing style place him among the most important writers in
his country.

Arturo Ambrogi
Born in 1878 in San Salvador, into a wealthy family of Italian origin,
Arturo Ambrogi studied at the Liceo Salvadoreño and very soon received
the influence of modernism led by Rubén Darío. He was Director of the
National Library and a journalist; He wrote his first articles in El
Fígaro, and went on to work in important newspapers such as La Ley de
Santiago de Chile and La Nation de Buenos Aires, collaborations that
were combined with his diplomatic career.

Later he was appointed consul, and as such he traveled through the

United States, Europe, China and Japan, in addition to other exotic
places. The experiences lived during those years were the source of
several travel books, such as Marginales de la vida (1912), Sensations
of Japan and China (1915) and Chronicles withered (1916), in which the
author reflected his acute power of observation and its unique
descriptive ability.

It would, however, be in the narrative field where Ambrogi would find

a better channel of expression for his talent. Influenced by
modernism, which dominated his collections of stories Bibelots (1893)
and Cuentos y fantasías (1895), the author later evolved towards a
greater concern for the daily reality of the country. Proof of this
were the folkloric narratives El jetón and Atanasio Aquino Rex, which
introduced this genre in El Salvador. Died in San Salvador in 1936,
Ambrogi's influence was decisive in the production of later Salvadoran
writers.
Arturo Ambrogi's style is seductive due to its precision for detail
and sensations and its great descriptive force, typical of the
painting of the time, as well as for the refinement and correctness of
the prose and its subtle irony. His work, in general, can be inscribed
within literary impressionism, and can also be studied as a tension
between his desires for modernity and his regionalist concerns, or
between his cosmopolitanism and a certain positive manners that made
him produce a title such as Book of the Tropic ( 1907), where he
delves into the countryside and the problems and feelings of its
peasants through stories and descriptions. Then the second book of the
tropic (1916) would appear, and later he would bring them together in
a single volume. His works include, in addition to those mentioned,
Stains, masks and sensations (1901), El Tiempo que pasa (1913) and the
posthumous Sampler (1955).

Hugo Lindo
(La Unión, 1917 - El Salvador, 1985) Salvadoran poet, novelist and
storyteller whose poetry is characterized by its religious and
metaphysical imprint, as in the Catholic poem Biography of Pain
(1943). The committed gaze defines his narrative and essay work.

Hugo Lindo studied jurisprudence and social sciences at the University

of El Salvador, for which he received his doctorate in 1948. His
thesis, El divorcio en El Salvador, was awarded a gold medal by the
academic authorities. He served as ambassador to Bogotá and Madrid and
became minister of education (1961). Later he was appointed director
of the Office of Cultural Affairs of the Organization of Central
American States. He belonged to the Salvadoran Academy of Language, of
which he was director emeritus, and was a corresponding member of the
Academies of Spain, Chile, Colombia and Honduras.
His poetry seeks to achieve lyrical revelation through clarity and
transparency, and it is also an act of knowledge, a search for forms
embedded in reality. The poetic accuracy and clarity, however, denote
a struggle against the transitory of life, things and the words
themselves: "And every time I think a word / I say / it is not this, /
no. // It covers a sound network / a vast void. / / It is not this, /
no. / It is not this yet.// Better we erase one by one, all / the
written words ", a feeling of fleetingness that tries to overcome by
supplying the words with all their redeeming power.
Among his many collections of poetry, Clavelia (1936), Eucharistic
Poetry and others (1943), Book of Hours (1948, first prize at the
Permanent Contest September 15), Sinfonía sin Límites (1953), Thirteen
instants (1959), Various Poetry deserve to be highlighted. (1961),
River Navigator (1963, first prize of the Floral Games of
Quezaltenango), Only the voice (1968, awarded in the National Cultural
Competition), Ways to rain (1969), This little always (1971),
Resonance of Vivaldi (1976), Easy word (1985) and Here my land (1989).
Posthumously appeared Desmeasure (1993), a long autobiographical poem
that was left unfinished.
His stories were anthologized in various regional selections such as
the Anthology of the Modern Central American Story (1949-1950). Of his
prose work, his religious and introspective narratives such as El
anzuelo de Dios (1956) and Justice, Señor Governor stand out. (1960),
along with other novels such as Every day has its desire (1964) and Yo
soy la memoria (1983).

  

Francisco Gavidia

(San Miguel, 1863 - San Salvador, 1955) Salvadoran poet who began his
literary work within romanticism and was later one of the key figures
of Latin American modernism. His figure opened a stage for the
literature of El Salvador and Latin America in general, since he is
considered, along with the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío and the Cuban José
Martí, one of the initiators of modernist poetry.
Classical studies, journalism, and politics filled his life. He was
trained in his country, but traveled through Europe and North and
South America. He fell in love with the Parnassians, translated the
French romantics (Victor Hugo, Lamartine) and had the glory of
initiating Rubén Darío, according to the confession of the master of
modern poetry, in the knowledge of the Parnassians and the French
symbolists and in the management of the Alexandrian with wide freedom
in the cuts and in the rhythm, which was to curdle later in the
modernist revolution, with all its consequences and literary sequels.
The starting point for these innovations was Gavidia's 1884
translation of a Victor Hugo composition, "Stella". He is also owed
some trials of adaptation of the classical hexameter to our language.
However, Francisco Gavidia was still, and more than anything, a
romantic who taught Rubén Darío to handle the Greek hexameter and the
French Alexandrian in the Spanish language. In that adaptation to
Castilian, Víctor Hugo influenced him with the thickness and power of
his verse. The beautiful accuracy of Gavidia's verses is a constant
element: "The curve of his chaste chest / That lifts his breast when
he breathes calmly, / As a gentle voluptuous wave oscillates / In the
sea of whiteness of his bed."
On the other hand, his poetry also described or helped to imagine the
reality of his country, with continental scenes. He investigated the
pre-Hispanic and colonial historical past, since he knew the Toltec,
Mayan and Nahoa cultures, as well as Greco-Latin and European
humanism, a factor that made him practice a measured and little
artificial poetry. His verses are of great musicality, innovating in
rhythms and meter. Some critics place Sóteer or La tierra de Preseas
(published in full in 1949) as his fundamental book, but also stand
out Versos (1884) and El libro de los azahares (1913).
Gavidia also cultivated other genres such as theater (looking for a
language that would bring it closer to the public): Jupiter (1885),
Ursino (1889), Conde de San Salvador o el Dios de las cosas (1901),
Lucía Lasso or Los piratas (1914). ), The ivory tower (1920) and the
dramatic poem La Princesa Catalá (1944) are some of his works.
Through the newspapers of the time, on the other hand, he also did
critical work and published educational essays. His essays were
collected mainly in Discourses, studies and conferences in 1941. His
stories, for which he sought inspiration in pre-Columbian and colonial
times and foreign traditions, were collected in several books,
including Cuentos y narraciones (1931).
An outstanding figure of parliamentarism in his country, he founded
newspapers in various Central American republics and published The
First Form of Government in Central America; he attempted the creation
of a universal language; he wrote works on music, history and
philosophy (like Study on the personality of Juan Montalvo and
Pensamientos); He was crowned "most deserving" in 1933 with great
solemnity, he presided over the Salvadoran Academy of the Language and
managed to successfully premiere some of his dramas.

Matilde Elena López

He was born in San Salvador on February 20, 1919. In the 1940s he was
part of a movement that sought to overthrow President Maximiliano
Hernández Martínez. Announcements him Then he went into exile in the
neighboring country of Guatemala where he began his journalism studies
at the University of San Carlos. At that time he also rendered his
services for the Guatemalan government of that time; But once said
government was overthrown, she went to Ecuador, where she studied
until graduating as a doctor in Philosophy and Letters, in 1957.
Announcements A year later she lived in Panama and then returned to El
Salvador, where she worked as a professor at the University of El
Salvador. since 1960. She also taught at the José Simeón Cañas Central
American University and was dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the
“Nueva San Salvador” University. Awards After these events, Matilde
Elena López participated in several floral games where she obtained
important prizes, among which we can mention the following: First
Prize for the Floral Games of Chiquimula (poetry, Guatemala, 1951)
First Prize for the Floral Games of the city of San Miguel ( 1960)
First prize for prose and an honorable mention in poetry at the IV
Floral Games of Nueva San Salvador (1960) Second place in the short
story branch of the Floral Games of Nueva San Salvador (1961) First
prize for the National Peace Contest (Poetry, Guatemala, 1953) First
prize, Juegos Florales Agostinos (San Salvador, 1957, where he won
third place with his poem Yo busco tus roots) “Centenario de
Suchitoto” contest (essay, 1959) La Prensa Gráfica literary contest
(1959, 1964, 1966) “Adrián Recinos” (shared) essay award in the “15 de
Septiembre” Contest of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts (Guatemala,
1962 “Dante Alighieri” Contest (essay, Guatema la, 1964) Sonsonate
Floral Games (February 1965) Columbia University Contest (short story,
New York, 1973) Second place in the Quetzaltenango Floral Games
(theater, Guatemala, 1976). Outstanding works Some of his works are
the following: Masferrer, high thinker of Central America (essay,
1954) Social interpretation of art (essay, 1965) Dante, poet and
citizen of the future (essay, 1965) Study-prologue to Selected Works
of Alberto Masferrer (1971) Study-prologue to the Selected Works of
Claudia Lars (1973) Studies on poetry (essay, 1973) The ballad of
Anastasio Aquino (theater, 1978) The dark sobs (poetry, 1982) The verb
to love (poetry, 1997) Literary essays (compilation, 1998). In 2005
she received the national literature prize awarded by CONCULTURA of El
Salvador. Matilde Elena López died in San Salvador on March 10, 2010,
due to lung problems caused by her advanced age.

  

Salvador Salazar Arrué

(Sonsonate, 1899 - San Salvador, 1976) Salvadoran artist and writer.

Also known by the pseudonym Salarrique, he was one of the fundamental
voices of Hispanic American literature for his conciseness and
strength in recreating the reality of his people. His identification
with the world of the Salvadoran peasant and his explorations in
eastern esoteric affairs and science fiction have led him to be valued
as one of the initiators of the new Latin American narrative and as an
outstanding exponent of the culture of his country. His Tales of clay
(1933), extremely short stories, contributed to forging the aesthetics
of the Spanish-American tale.
Installed with his family in the Salvadoran capital since he was eight
years old, at the age of ten he already published his first texts in
the Diario de El Salvador. Trained at the Liceo Salvadoreño, the
National Institute and the Academy of Commerce, he also studied
painting and drawing with the Greek-Russian teacher Spiro Rossolimo,
and later, thanks to a scholarship, at the Corcoran School of Art in
Washington, where with twenty years ago he held his first solo
exhibition at Hisada's Gallery.
Back in El Salvador, he married artist Zelie Lardé and began providing
work services for the Red Cross. In 1928 he was hired as editor-in-
chief of the daily Patria, directed by the writers Alberto Masferrer
and Alberto Guerra Trigueros. He published articles there and the
first stories about him, later regrouped in Cuentos de cipotes. He
founded and directed the magazines Amatl and Espiral; Throughout his
life he would collaborate in numerous newspapers and literary and
artistic magazines.
A member of the Society of Friends of Art (1935-1939), for several
years he worked as a cultural attaché to the diplomatic delegation in
the United States, and participated in the Education Conference
organized in July 1941 by the University of Michigan. He alternated
literature with painting; the success of his exhibitions in New York
and San Francisco (1947-49) and of some of those that he later held in
his country and again in the United States between 1958 and 1963 are
especially remembered. Another of his artistic facets was that of
composer : more than a hundred songs are owed to him.
In 1963 he held the position of General Director of Fine Arts, and in
1967 he founded, in Cuscatlán Park, the National Gallery of Art (now
known as the National Exhibition Hall), a center whose direction he
assumed. From 1973 until his death he was cultural advisor to the
cabinet of the Director General of Culture, Carlos de Sola.
The literary work of Salaruestra has placed him in the right role of
classic not only of Salvadoran literature, but also of short stories
in Castilian. His peculiar manners is rather an emphasis on the
language of his people, a tender vision of the little beings who, with
their tenderness and misery, cross the landscapes of their country. He
wrote about peasants and displaced people from the cities, identifying
with their problems and traits, as well as with his verbal matter,
which reproduces the idiomatic tension between dialects, indigenous
languages and Spanish.
In his case, magic realism has also been discussed: a good example of
this is the famous story "The Ring of Orichalcum", which develops the
theme of death, the Indian magi and the topic of the enchanted ring.
His first novels were The Black Christ (1927) and The Lord of the
Bubble (1927). With Oyarkandal (1929), a collection of stories, he
released his first fantastic tales.
Peralta Lagos, José María (1873-1944)
Salvadoran narrator, playwright, essayist, journalist and engineer,
born in Santa Tecla on July 25, 1873, and died in Guatemala City on
July 22, 1944. Famous in his time, above all, for his humorous and
traditional pieces He left many of his writings signed under the
pseudonyms "TP Mechín" and "Mechinón".
Although he felt, from an early age, a marked humanistic vocation that
led him to devote himself to the cultivation of literature in his
spare time, his academic training was oriented from the beginning
towards science and technology. Thus, during the last decade of the
19th century, he moved to Spain to study higher engineering studies at
the Guadalajara Military Academy, where he obtained the degree of
engineer in 1897.
With this qualification in his curriculum, he returned to Central
America to begin assuming high responsibility functions in the
Salvadoran public administration. Thus, he was appointed Director of
Public Works, Undersecretary of Development, and Minister of War and
Navy (during the period 1911-1913, in which José María Peralta Lagos
definitively promoted the creation of the Fire Department, the Army
Maestranza and the National Guard). Already at that time his merits at
the service of the Salvadoran people were beginning to be notable,
which led, in August 1913, that the National Assembly of his country
appointed him Brigadier General.
Subsequently, he continued to hold positions of responsibility within
the Salvadoran Government and Administration, functions that he
alternated with representing him in several highly prestigious
cultural institutions within and outside its borders. Indeed, he was
Minister Plenipotentiary of El Salvador in Spain and Director General
of Statistics (1942), as well as a corresponding member of the Royal
Spanish Academy and President of the Ateneo de El Salvador.
In his role as a writer, José María Peralta Lagos was oriented from an
early age towards the genre of manners, which he cultivated profusely
in numerous articles and stories published in different media. Signed
with the pseudonyms indicated in the initial paragraph, many of these
festive folkloric pieces saw the light of day in two compilations that
appeared under the titles Burla mocking (1923) and Brochazos (1925),
works that earned him a well-deserved reputation as a humorous writer.
In 1926 he gave to the press Doctor Gonorreitigorrea, a short novel
with which, again hand in hand with humor, he delved into social
criticism. Six years later he published a foray into the dramatic
genre entitled Candidate (1931), a three-act comedy in which he
addressed political satire. The following year he returned to
narrative prose, now with a novel entitled La muerte de la Tórtola or
Malandanzas de un corresponsal (1932).
The rest of the literary and essay production of José María Peralta
Lagos is completed with the following titles: Homenaje al sabio Valle
(1934), Some ideas about the future organization of higher education
in Central America (1936), Memories of a friendly and sympathetic
fiesta (1941), humorist Masferrer (1941), and the dramatic piece El
entremés de las coyotas (1950).
  

Oswaldo Escobar Velado

(Santa Ana, 1919 - 1961) Salvadoran poet. The first stage of his
production followed the courses of romanticism, but later he developed
a more realistic, committed and social work.
In the field of politics, he was part of the "group of six", which
fought against the dictator Maximiliano H. Martínez. He lived in exile
in Guatemala between 1944 and 1945, and later in Costa Rica. He
advocated the union of Central America into a single entity. In the
last years of his life, he suffered from tongue cancer that forced him
to travel to Texas on several occasions, where surgical interventions
failed to heal him.
 His poetry is a balance of lyrical beauty and commitment to his
historical time. Always torn between avant-garde postmodernism,
romanticism and social and political commitment, his lyrics are
difficult to locate. His books include Poems with closed eyes (1943),
Ten sonnets for a thousand and more workers (1950), Volcano in time
(1955), Tree of struggle and hope (1951), Cristoamérica (1958),
Cubamérica (1960) , Poetic Anthology (1967) and Exact Country and
Other Poems (1978) .21

Álvaro Menéndez Desleal,

known by Álvaro Menen Desleal (Santa Ana; March 13, 1931 - San
Salvador; April 6, 2000) was a Salvadoran short story writer and
playwright.
His correct name is Álvaro Mendez Leal and he belonged to the so-
called Committed Generation along with Manlio Argueta, Ítalo López
Vallecillos, Roque Dalton and others. Menéndez Leal was the creator of
the television newscasts in El Salvador, with the legendary Salvadoran
Telediario program. His luck changed from government to government; he
was exiled and was also cultural attaché of El Salvador in Mexico and
director of the National Theater.
Álvaro Menéndez Leal was born in the city of Santa Ana on March 13,
1931. He entered the “General Gerardo Barrios” Military School, from
which he was expelled when he was in his third year (1952), due to a
"subversive" poem. which he published in La Prensa Gráfica.
He was born in San Salvador on February 20, 1919. In the 1940s he was
part of a movement that sought to overthrow President Maximiliano
Hernández Martínez. Announcements He then went into exile in the
neighboring country of Guatemala where he began his journalism studies
at the University of San Carlos. At that time he also rendered his
services for the Guatemalan government of that time; But once said
government was overthrown, she went to Ecuador, where she studied
until graduating as a doctor in Philosophy and Letters, in 1957.
Announcements A year later she lived in Panama and then returned to El
Salvador, where she worked as a professor at the University of El
Salvador since 1960. She also taught at the José Simeón Cañas Central
American University and was dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the
“Nueva San Salvador” University. Awards After these events, Matilde
Elena López participated in several floral games where she obtained
important prizes, among which we can mention the following: First
Prize for the Floral Games of Chiquimula (poetry, Guatemala, 1951)
First Prize for the Floral Games of the city of San Miguel ( 1960)
First prize for prose and an honorable mention in poetry at the IV
Floral Games of Nueva San Salvador (1960) Second place in the short
story branch of the Floral Games of Nueva San Salvador (1961) First
prize for the National Peace Contest (Poetry, Guatemala, 1953) First
prize, Juegos Florales Agostinos (San Salvador, 1957, where he won
third place with his poem Yo busco tus roots) “Centenario de
Suchitoto” contest (essay, 1959) La Prensa Gráfica literary contest
(1959, 1964, 1966) “Adrián Recinos” (shared) essay award in the “15 de
Septiembre” Contest of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts (Guatemala,
1962 “Dante Alighieri” Contest (essay, Guatema la, 1964) Sonsonate
Floral Games (February 1965) Columbia University Contest (short story,
New York, 1973) Second place in the Quetzaltenango Floral Games
(theater, Guatemala, 1976). Outstanding works Some of his works are
the following: Masferrer, high thinker of Central America (essay,
1954) Social interpretation of art (essay, 1965) Dante, poet and
citizen of the future (essay, 1965) Study-prologue to Selected Works
of Alberto Masferrer (1971) Study-prologue to the Selected Works of
Claudia Lars (1973) Studies on poetry (essay, 1973) The ballad of
Anastasio Aquino (theater, 1978) The dark sobs (poetry, 1982) The verb
to love (poetry, 1997) Literary essays (compilation, 1998). In 2005
she received the national literature prize awarded by CONCULTURA of El
Salvador. Matilde Elena López died in San Salvador on March 10, 2010,
due to lung problems caused by her advanced age.
He toured as a boxer through the arenas of Guatemala and those of
provincial Mexico, until he made his debut at the Metropolitan Arena
in the federal district. From his first stay in this country emanated
an existentialist collection of poems, entitled The strange inhabitant
(Mexico, 3AM), begun in March of that same year and published in San
Salvador, ten years later.
In August 1955, he re-entered the editorial office of El Diario de Hoy
and directed, for a short time, the brief, critical and humorous
sections Paso doble and Paso ganso, as well as the pages of
Philosophy, art and letters created by the fine poet Ricardo Trigueros
de León.
On September 7, 1956, he founded Tele-Periódico, the first television
news program in El Salvador, broadcast at noon and at night on YSEB
channel 6. During its initial months, under the sponsorship of the
Freund commercial house, this television space had a Cultural
Supplement or Sunday promotion section for the arts and letters, as
well as an attached newspaper, printed in Mexico City using the
rotogravure technique.
Later, Menéndez Leal created Tele-Reloj, a news space that was
broadcast by YSEB channel 6 and YSDR channel 8, in their midday hours
while Teleperiódico occupied the nighttime broadcasts. In May 1957, he
resumed directing the Sunday literary pages of El Diario de Hoy. In
1961 he enrolled as a student in the Sociology career at the Faculty
of Philosophy and Letters of the University of El Salvador (UES).
From the University of El Salvador, he collaborated with the magazine
Vida universitaria and on Friday, June 30, 1961, he was declared the
winner of several awards at the Central American University Cultural
Contest, sponsored by the Association of Law Students (AED). Those
awards were the "Vicente Sáenz" for his essay Is it licit to kill the
tyrant ?, the "Juan Ramón Molina" for his collection of poems Duro
pan, el exilio and an award for his story The Fall, revealing of his
experience in the air disaster Paraguayan.
In October 1961, he obtained other awards in the first University
Cultural Contest, promoted by the Humanities Students Association of
the University of El Salvador. In these events, he obtained, shared,
the first poetic prize "Oswaldo Escobar Velado" for his work Poetry
for painters (haikús); the highest short story prize "Arturo Ambrogi"
for La Esperanza and the second essay award, designated "Marcelino
García Flamenco" for Testimony about Vallejo.
In February 1962 he was appointed professor]] of the Faculty of
Economics of the University of El Salvador. Five months later, he was
awarded two prizes from the XI Cultural Tournament of the Law Students
Association (AED): the "Alberto Masferrer" Prize for Social Sciences -
for his work in the Upper Neighborhood and the Lower Neighborhood.
Among his work published by him is, La clave (short story, San
Salvador, 1962); Short and Wonderful Tales (short story. Book awarded
with Second Place in the National Culture Contest, 1962); The Strange
Inhabitant (Poetry, San Salvador, 1964); The Circus and Other False
Pieces (Theater. La Universidad Magazine, San Salvador, 1966); Luz
Negra (Theater: Shared First Prize, Hispano-American Floral Games of
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 1965); Ciudad, Casa de Todos (Essay: Second
Prize National Culture Contest, San Salvador, 1966); A Nylon and Gold
String (Story: First Prize in the National Culture Contest, San
Salvador, 1968); Revolution in the Country that built a Fairy Castle
(Story: First Place in the Miguel Ángel Asturias Central American
Contest, from the Central American University Superior Council, Costa
Rica, 1970); The Illustrious Android Family (Short Story, Argentina,
1972); The Vices of Dad (Story, San Salvador, 1978); The bicycle at
the foot of the wall (Theater, San Salvador, 2000); Three short and
not very exemplary novels (San Salvador, 2007

Roque Dalton
 (San Salvador, 1935 - near Quezaltepeque, 1975) Salvadoran poet whose
work, in a colloquial and socially committed style, was a participant
in the renewal of Latin American poetry in the 1960s. Born in the
popular neighborhood of San José in the capital Salvadoran, the young
Roque Dalton attended his first studies in the religious schools Santa
Teresita del Niño Jesús and Bautista, to later enter the Externado de
San José, where in 1953 he obtained a bachelor's degree.

From a very young age, he manifested a marked social conscience that

led him to become a member of the revolutionary movements that fought
for social improvements in Central America. In 1956, while studying
Law at the University of El Salvador, he was one of the founding
members of the University Literary Circle, and in 1957 he moved to
Moscow as a Salvadoran delegate at the Sixth Festival of Youth and
Students for Peace and Peace. Friendship. Previously, he had been in
Chile to pursue higher studies in Jurisprudence (1953), a career that
he complemented in his native country with Social Sciences (1954-
1959), and at the University of Mexico with Ethnology (1961) .
By then, Roque Dalton was already one of the most promising young
voices in contemporary Spanish-American poetry. Some of his first
compositions had been awarded in several editions of the Central
American Poetry Prize (1956, 1958 and 1959). In 1963, with the
publication of one of his best collections of poems, The Turn of the
Offended, he established himself as the most relevant Salvadoran poet
of his time. The work was distinguished with an honorable mention in
the Casa de las Américas contest, a contest that seven years later he
would win with the poetry book Taberna y otros places (1969).
His political activity went hand in hand with his dedication to
literary creation. A member of the Salvadoran Communist Party since
1958, Dalton had already been imprisoned several times in his native
country when, in 1961, he was forced to take the path of exile. He
then embarked on a journey that led him to reside and work in
Guatemala, Mexico, Czechoslovakia and Cuba, stays abroad that he used
to interrupt with sporadic visits to his native country. He made a
living from the essays and articles that he published, which also
allowed him to travel, sometimes for journalistic reasons and others
for political activism, to the Republics of Vietnam and Korea, and to
numerous European and South American countries.
Due to disagreements with the leftist leaders of his country, in 1967
he left the Communist Party and remained outside his political
militancy until, in 1973, he returned to El Salvador to enlist in the
ranks of the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), where took the
guerrilla pseudonym Julio Delfos Marín. After actively collaborating
with this clandestine organization that supports direct confrontation
and armed struggle, for dark reasons that have never been clarified,
he was persecuted, tried and executed by his own comrades in arms, who
left his body in a wild place where he was torn to pieces. and
devoured by wild beasts. This execution triggered angry protests in
intellectual circles, especially among Spanish-American writers,
championed in their condemnation by the Argentine Julio Cortázar.

David Escobar Galindo

(Santa Ana, October 4, 1943) is a Salvadoran poet, novelist, and jurist. He is a Doctor of
Jurisprudence and Social Sciences, graduated from the García Flamenco College and the
University of El Salvador, Rector of the "Dr. José Matías Delgado" University, and a regular
columnist for the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica. Between 1990 and 1992 he participated in the
government commission negotiating the peace process that ended the Civil War in El
Salvador.
He is a member of the Salvadoran Language Academy and Director of it since 2006; winner of
the Floral Games of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, in the branch of poetry in 1980, 1981 and
1983, for which he received the recognition of Master of Knowledge; 1 and has been named
Merit Son of the City of Santa Ana. In 2011 He was awarded the XXXI Fernando Rielo World
Prize for Mystic Poetry.
 He is considered one of the most prolific authors and founders of Salvadoran literature, along
with Francisco Gavidia and Claudia Lars. His published work includes collections of poetry, the
play Las Hogueras de Itaca (premiered in 1984), volumes of short stories, editorials for La
Prensa Grâfica and the digital newspaper El Faro, and the novel Una Grieta en el Agua (1972).
He has also prepared several poetic anthologies such as El Árbol de Todos, Lecturas
Hispanoamericanas (1979), Indice antolôgico de la poesîa Salvadoreña (1982) and Pages
Patrióticas Salvadoreñas (1988). In 1979, the Uruguayan Hispanic critic Hugo Emilio
Pedemonte warned: "The appearance of David Escobar Galindo has been the most important
event in Central American poetry of the last twenty-five years, and he would say that he is on
the way to surpass all his elders, as a day it happened with the unexpected Nicaraguan Rubén
Darîo ". The French professor Marîa Poumier describes his work as "amazingly magnetic and
purifying, the kind that break down masks to dust."