Lauro Dávila Echeverría

Lauro Dávila Echeverría (Pasaje, El Oro, August 18, 1885 – Guayaquil, December 23, 1968) was an Ecuadorian writer, poet, songwriter, and teacher. He wrote the music and lyrics for 23 songs, including the beloved “Guayaquil de mis amores,” an anthem that encapsulates the pride and love for the city of Guayaquil. His significant contribution to music was acknowledged when he became a founding member and the first secretary general of the National Union of Musicians. Dávila’s legacy also extends to literature, having penned several poem collections and comedies. Throughout his life, he was recognized with various awards for his contributions to music and literature. He passed away at the age of 83 in Guayaquil, the city that inspired his most famous song.

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Juan Montalvo

Juan María Montalvo y Fiallos (Ambato, 1832) was an influential Ecuadorian author, essayist, and formidable polemicist whose writings had a significant impact on the political landscape of his time. Known for his notable works such as “Las Catilinarias” (1880) and “Siete Tratados” (1882), Montalvo exhibited a fiery, unapologetic style, often challenging and criticizing the political status quo. As a political liberal, his beliefs were characterized by anti-clericalism and a fierce opposition to the authoritarian regimes of Gabriel García Moreno and Ignacio de Veintemilla. Despite facing exile multiple times, his penetrating critiques and commitment to democratic principles left a lasting legacy in Ecuador and beyond. Montalvo’s audacious spirit, combined with his eloquent prose, positioned him as a key figure in Latin American literature, while his life and works continue to symbolize the power of the written word as a tool for political change.

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Carlos Villasís Endara

Carlos Alfonso Villasís Endara (Bahía de Caráquez, November 17, 1930 – Quito, January 27, 2023) was an Ecuadorian writer, poet, playwright, and renowned art critic. He was the founder of the literary group “Galaxia,” member of the “Caminos” group, vice president of the Cotopaxi chapter of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, member of the Legal-Literary Society, and an honorary member of the Association of Plastic Artists of Ecuador. He was known by his family and friends as “Carlucho.”

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Juan Carlos Cucalón

Juan Carlos Cucalón (Guayaquil, 1963) is an Ecuadorian short story writer and playwright. In 2007 he won first place in the Pablo Palacio Short Story Biennial with his story “Miedo a U2” [Fear of U2]. His book of short stories “Surcos obtusos” won the 2009 edition of the Luis Félix López National Literature Contest. Among the themes of the book are homoeroticism and masculinity in Latin America. In 2010, he premiered his play “Exododedosexos,” whose plot follows two transgender women named Malva Malabar and Simoné Bernadette who prepare to stage a play by Tenesse Williams. Cucalón is openly homosexual, and throughout his career he has published numerous stories featuring characters of various sexual orientations.

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Eduardo Solá Franco

Eduardo Solá Franco (Guayaquil, Ecuador 1915 – Santiago, Chile, 1996) was a prolific and multi-faceted artist, perhaps the most diverse Ecuador has ever produced. His staggering output included not only hundreds of paintings in a variety of styles but also sculpture, illustrations for magazines and film, stage scenery, plays, poetry and novels, choreographed ballets, award-winning experimental films and, perhaps most intriguing of all, a series of 14 illustrated diaries in which he recorded, “all that which I saw of interest and that attracted me: people, landscapes, cities, states of being, spectacles, parties, and fashion.” He was also a public figure, he served for years as Ecuador’s cultural attache in Rome, mingling with artists, thinkers, and society figures of Europe, the United States, and South America.

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Mercedes G. de Moscoso

Mercedes G. de Moscoso, born Mercedes González Tola, also known by the pen name Rosa del Valle (Guayaquil, October 12, 1860 – October 23, 1911) was an Ecuadorian poet, playwright, activist and feminist. She is known as the greatest exponent of Ecuador’s second romanticism, she was notable for her poetry and plays. The majority of her poetry is contained in the books, Cantos del Hogar (1909) and Rosas de Otoño (1911). She wrote three plays, Abuela (1903), Martirio sin culpa (1905), and Nobleza (unpublished). In 1905 she collaborated with Zoila Ugarte and Dolores Sucre in La Mujer, the first feminist and suffragette magazine in Ecuador. Her brother was the poet Nicolás Augusto González.

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Mario Cobo Barona

Mario Cobo Barona (Ambato, September 10, 1930 – Ambato, April 16, 2007) was an Ecuadorian poet, playwright, essayist, and educator. He wrote over 30 books in different genres. The Ecuadorian House of Culture published an anthology containing the majority of his poetic works. He held various posts in Ecuador in the field of education, such as Vice Minister of Public Education, Provincial Director of Education of Tungurahua, and Rector of the Rumiñahui National School, to name a few. He received several accolades and recognitions for his work as an educator. On July 31, 1997, he became a corresponding member of the House of Ecuadorian Culture. On January 17, 2002, he was honored with full membership into the academy.

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Javier Cevallos Perugachi

Javier Cevallos Perugachi (Quito, January 18, 1976) is a poet, playwright, actor, and stage director. He has worked on over 25 stage productions with national and international groups and actors. His literary works include the poetry collections, “La ciudad que se devoró a sí misma” (2001) and “C” (2005), as well as the plays “¡Repúbica! / Danzante” (2012) and “Ofelia City & Llaktayuk” (2014).

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Ricardo Descalzi

Ricardo Descalzi del Castillo (Riobamba, September 22, 1912 – Riobamba, November 29, 1990) was an Ecuadorian novelist, historian, playwright, short story writer, translator, literary critic, university professor and medical doctor. In 1928, he founded the magazine Surcos with his Mejía National Institute classmates José Alfredo Llerena and Arturo Meneses. After graduating from high school in 1932, he published “Ghismondo,” a 100-page novel based on his experiences as a student. He also wrote the novel “Saloya” (1962), a short story collection “Los murmullos de Dios” (1959), and the stage plays “Los Caminos Blancos” (1939), “En el horizonte se alzó la niebla” (1961), and “El huasipungo de Andrés Chiliquinga” (1981). His six-volume “Historia crítica del teatro ecuatoriano” is perhaps his most important work (1968). Among his translations is “Poemas” (1969), a French-to-Spanish translation of poems by Nobel laureate Jean Poilvet Le Guenn. The Tobar Prize was bestowed upon him by the municipality of Quito in 1968. He was a member of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, the National Academy of History, and the Bolivarian Society of Quito, where he served as its vice president.

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Cristian Avecillas

Cristian Avecillas Sigüenzas (Quito, 1977) is an Ecuadorian poet, essayist, playwright, actor, singer and songwriter. He directed the cultural magazine CAMINARTE of the El Telégrafo radio. In 2008 his poetry book “Todos los cadáveres soy yo” received honorable mention at the Casa de las Américas literary prize competition (Cuba). That same year his poetry book “Ecce Homo II” won the César Dávila Andrade National Poetry Prize. He also wrote a book-length biographical study on Edmundo Ribadeneira. His first play Funeraria Travel (2009) won the Latin American Dramaturgy Award (Argentina). It had its debut in 2009 in La Plata, Argentina, and has been performed at theater festivals in Perú, Venezuela, Uruguay and Ecuador.

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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 as a precursor of the realist and social theater.

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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.

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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”.

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Alfonso Murriagui

Alfonso Murriagui Valverde (Quito, 1929-January 19, 2017) was an Ecuadorian poet, fiction writer, dramatist, journalist, and an exponent of communism. Murriagui‘s poetry is marked by political and revolutionary ideology. For several years he was an editor of En Marcha, the official weekly periodical of the Central Committee of the Communist Marxist Leninist Party of Ecuador. In 1961 he was a founding member of the Tzántzico group of the 1960s. That same year he began writing for Pucuna magazine. In 1965 he became vice president of the Association of Young Writers of Ecuador. He was the director of public relations of the Luís Vargas Torres de Esmeraldas Technical University from 1972-1976. He was the director of cultural diffusion of the Philosophy Department of the Central University of Ecuador from 1985-1992). During the last 15 years of his life he was the editor of the culture section of the leftist weekly periodical Opción.

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Raúl Andrade Moscoso

Raúl Andrade Moscoso (Quito, October 4, 1905 – Quito, September 10, 1983) was an Ecuadorian journalist and dramatist. As a journalist, Andrade travelered throughout Mexico and Colombia, where he worked for the newspaper El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia), and published his book “La internacional negra en Colombia,” a collection of articles on the crisis in Colombia. He was also the editor of El Comercio from 1954-1982. As a dramatist, Andrade published “Suburbio,” a romantic evocation on the suburbs of Quito. In 1983 the president of Ecuador conferred on Andrade the Eugenio Espejo Prize in Culture.

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