María Piedad Castillo de Levi

María Piedad Castillo de Levi (Guayaquil, July 6, 1888 – Quito, March 4, 1962) she was an Ecuadorian writer, poet, and journalist. She is also regarded as an important feminist who fought for women’s suffrage in Ecuador, for which she was targeted by the authorities. Castillo traveled to Paris to study in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Sorbonne. On her return to Ecuador, she began working for the publication El Telégrafo Literario. She wrote numerous poems, which appeared both in El Telégrafo and in various magazines. In June 1933, she funded the magazine Nuevos Horizontes with a group of fellow feminists. It served as the media organ of the Women’s Legion of Popular Education, an organization that worked to improve the rights of women workers. They also created a radio program, which the presidential candidate José María Velasco Ibarra appeared on in 1934. In 1935, Castillo was a candidate for minister of education, and El Telégrafo supported her candidacy. But women were still broadly excluded from Ecuadorian politics at the time, so she was denied the position. She served as the Ecuadorian delegate to the Inter-American Commission of Women for many years, beginning in 1940. She also joined the House of Ecuadorian Culture in Guayas and Pichincha beginning in 1946. Castillo traveled widely, spending long periods in the United States and even working as a foreign correspondent in Germany. She was a member of the National Press Club in Washington D.C. In recognition of her poetic work, the House of Ecuadorian Culture published her collection “Poemas de Ayer y de Hoy” in 1962.

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Hipatia Cárdenas de Bustamante

Hipatia Cárdenas de Bustamante, also known as Aspacia (Quito, March 23, 1889 – Quito, February 9, 1972) was an Ecuadorian writer, politician, suffragist, and feminist. She was one of the pioneering defenders of women’s suffrage in Ecuador. In 1929, she became the first female Councilor of State, and in 1932, she became the first female candidate for the presidency. She fought for respect in the women’s right to vote in Ecuador after its approval in 1929 and the appearance of groups that were against it. In 1943 she published her book “Oro, rojo y azul,” and wrote for the newspapers El Día, El Comercio, and the magazine América.

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Luz Elisa Borja Martínez

Luz Elisa Borja Martínez (Riobamba, May 15, 1903 – Riobamba, July 10, 1927) was an Ecuadorian poet, pianist, painter, and sculptor. In only 24 years of life, she amassed an extensive body of written work, which her brother Luis Alberto published after her death in two books titled “Cofre Romántico” and “La Bella Durmiente.” The second book contains the poem “Quiero Llorar” (I Mourn), which she wrote in 1918, at the age of 15, after the death of the mother superior of the Riobamba Sisters of Charity. It has seven stanzas, two of which became the lyrics for the Ecuadorian pasillo called “Lamparilla.” The music was composed by Miguel Ángel Casares Viteri, who was inspired by Borja’s poem and his dismay over the damage caused by a Chanchán River flood. Some of her original works can be found at the House of Ecuadorian Culture in Chimborazo.

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Rosa Amelia Alvarado

Rosa Amelia Alvarado Roca (1944, Guayaquil) is an Ecuadorian writer and poet. In 1964 she founded the Guayaquil-based magazine Hogar, which became the biggest women’s magazine line in Ecuador. From 1967 to 1972, she worked in television as the director of programming at Channel 2 in Guayaquil, specializing in the creation of cultural programs. She is the president of the Guayas branch of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, and is a member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Language. Her most notable poems include: “Añoranza,” “Cosas Absurdas,” “De lo profano (II),” “El sermón de la montaña” and “La vida va y viene.”

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Aminta Buenaño

Aminta del Rosario Buenaño Rugel (Santa Lucia, September 27, 1958) is an Ecuadorian writer, politician and diplomat. She has served as ambassador to Spain, Nicaragua, and Barbados, as well as vice president of the National Assembly of Ecuador. Her short stories have been published within and outside of Ecuador. Her 2011 novel “Si tú mueres primero” was a finalist of the XIII International Novel Competition of the City of Badajoz (Spain).

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Zoila Ugarte de Landívar

Zoila Ugarte de Landívar, also known by her pseudonym Zarelia (El Guabo, June 27, 1864 – Quito, November 16, 1969) was an Ecuadorian writer, journalist, librarian, sculpturist, educator, suffragist, and feminist. She was the first female journalist in Ecuador. Together with Hipatia Cárdenas de Bustamante, she was a key defender of women’s suffrage in Ecuador. As an early figure in the realm of female Ecuadorian journalists, her career began in the late 1880s. She began to use the journalistic pseudonym Zarelia in the weekly publication Tesoro del Hogar. In 1905 she founded La Mujer, the country’s first women’s magazine. As a teacher, Ugarte taught at various schools in Quito including the Liceo Fernández Madrid girls’ school and the Manuela Cañizares school. She also became the first female editor-in-chief of the political newspaper La Prensa in 1911. She served as president of Quito’s Press Circle.

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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.

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Carmen Váscones

Carmen Váscones is an Ecuadorian writer, poet, literary critic, columnist, essayist and a clinical psychologist. She was born in Samborondón in 1958. She earned a degree in Psychology in 1983 and in Clinical Psychologist in 1984. She won the Cesar Dávila Andrade Poetry Biennial Prize (Cuenca, 1993) for Memorial aun acantilado, top Mention at the Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest (El Universo, Guayaquil, 1996) for Aguaje. In 1998 she received an award from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Ecuador, in 2001 she received an award from the National Congress of Ecuador for “her practice of teaching and the cultivation of beautiful letters,” and in 2002 she received the Cultural Educational Merit (Ministry of Education and Culture of Ecuador). As a psychologist, Váscones works with abused children and their mothers. Her book ULTRAJE / OUTRAGE was translated into English by Alexis Levitin in 2018.

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Rafael Pino Roca

Rafael Pino Roca (Guayaquil, October 24, 1878 – 1963) was an Ecuadorian poet and playwright. From 1908-1911 he was appointed Captain of the Port of Guayaquil by General Eloy Alfaro. In 1915 his play La Pólvora, which was co-written with his friend César Borja Lavayen, was brought to the stage in the Olmedo Theater of Guayaquil. In 1916 he was named Minister of War, Navy and Aviation in the government of President Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno. In 1931 he was named Ecuador’s Consul General in Bremen and Prague, and in 1935 he was put in charge of trade with Berlin. Pino’s most praised work is Canto a la Raza (1934), about the discovery and conquest of the Americas.

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Juan Benigno Vela

Juan Benigno Vela Hervas (Ambato, July 9, 1843 – Ambato, February 24, 1920) was an Ecuadorian politician, lawyer, journalist, educator, writer and poet. He earned his law degree from the Central University of Ecuador. Since the age of 33 he was completely blind. He founded the newspapers El Combate, La Idea, La Candela, El Argos and El Pelayo. He was an opponent of the conservative governments of Presidents Gabriel García Moreno and General Ignacio de Veintemilla. For his beliefs he was several times persecuted, imprisoned or exiled. From 1912-1919 he was a senator during the governments of Presidents Leónidas Plaza (1901-1905, 1912-1916) and Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno (1916-1920). He is remembered as a consistent advocate for human rights and freedom in Ecuador.

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Alejandro Moreano

Alejandro Moreano (Quito, 1945) is an Ecuadorian writer, essayist, university professor, novelist, literary critic, and political scientist. On four occasions he was the director of the school of sociology at the Central University of Ecuador, and has been a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, and is currently a visiting professor at the Simon Bolivar Andean University (Ecuador). His latest novel El crímen del tarot (2020), which Moreano has described as “a novel within a novel,” has to do with politics, theater, love and eroticism.

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Nelson Estupiñán Bass

Nelson Estupiñán Bass (Sua, Esmeraldas, September 19, 1912 — Pennsylvania, United States, March 3, 2002) was an Afro-Ecuadorian novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, journalist and diplomat. He served as the president of the Esmeraldas chapter of the House of Ecuadorian Culture. His first novel Cuando los guayacanes florecían (1954; translated into English as When the Guayacans Were in Bloom, 1987) is widely read in Ecuador and Latin America, and has been translated into English, German, French and Russian. In 1993 Bass received Ecuador’s highest literary honor, the Eugenio Espejo Award. In 1998, Estupiñán Bass was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. While giving a series of lectures in 2002 at Penn State University Bass became ill with pneumonia and succumbed to the deadly illness at the Hershey Medical Center on March 3, 2002

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Luis A. Martinez

Luis A. Martinez (Ambato, June 23, 1869 – November 26, 1909) was an Ecuadorian writer, painter, politician, and agriculturist. His novel A la costa (1904) is a masterpiece of Ecuadorian literature, and is one of the earliest works of realism in Ecuador. He was also a painter; some of his best paintings are housed outside of Ecuador: Two are in the United States Library of Congress, two in the Modern Art section of the Vatican Museum, and one is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was an opponent of the government of Eloy Alfaro (President of Ecuador in 1895-1901, 1906-1911) and fought against the liberal guerillas of the 1890s.

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Jaime Marchán

Jaime Marchán Romero (Quito, March 15, 1947) is an Ecuadorian writer and politician. In 2013 his novel “Volcán de Niebla” won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Prize. He studied Political Science at the Pontifical Catholic University (Quito), and earned a PhD at George Washington University (Washington, D.C.). He has served as Ecuador’s ambassador to Yugoslavia (1989-1990), Italy (1990-1992), Austria (1994-1997), Chile (1997-2000), Switzerland (2003-2008), and the United Kingdom (2019-). He has also held various posts in Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Jaime Galarza Zavala

Jaime Alejandro Galarza Zavala (Cuenca, July 28, 1930 – Quito, July 20, 2023) was an Ecuadorian writer, poet, journalist and polítician. He published over 20 books, including books of poetry and non-fiction books, among which are: El yugo feudal (1962), Piratas del golfo (1973), Los Campesinos de Loja y Zamora (1973), El festín del petróleo (1974), Quienes mataron a Roldós (1982), Petróleo de nuestra muerte (1983). He served as the national vice president of the House of Ecuadorian Culture from 2008-2012. In 2007 President Rafael Correa awarded Galarza the Eugenio Espejo National Culture Prize. Among his friends were Julio Cortazar and Ernesto Che Guevara.

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