Ramiro Oviedo

Ramiro Oviedo (Chambo, Ecuador, 1952) is a renowned poet and writer known for his literary contributions in Ecuador and France. He relocated to France in 1987, where he taught Latin American literature at Université du Littoral. Oviedo has published several acclaimed books. His collection, “Les poèmes du colonel” (2002) won the Trouvères Prize in 2002 and the Claude Sernet Prize in 2004. His captivating writing delves into the existential struggle for meaning in life and the challenges individuals face. Oviedo’s dedication to literature and teaching has made him a prominent figure in the international literary community, shaping the minds of aspiring writers and contributing significantly to the cultural exchange between Latin America and Europe.

Continue reading “Ramiro Oviedo”

Humberto E. Robles

Humberto E. Robles (Manta, Manabí, Aug 18, 1938 – Miami, May 20, 2021) was an Ecuadorian writer and a renowned specialist in Ecuadorian and Latin American literatures. He retired from Northwestern University in 2003 after teaching for over 30 years and maintained a remarkable level of scholarly productivity until his death. His notable accomplishments included being named a member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Language, a prestigious cultural institution in Latin America. Professor Robles’s research focused on various topics within Spanish American literature, and he contributed extensively to encyclopedias, journals, and book collections. He authored several influential books and held significant academic positions throughout his career, making significant contributions to the field of literature.

Continue reading “Humberto E. Robles”

De Plácido e Silva

Oscar Joseph de Plácido e Silva, known as De Plácido e Silva (Marechal Deodoro, Brazil, June 18, 1892 – Curitiba, Brazil, January 16, 1963) was a Brazilian jurist, writer, editor, translator, publisher, teacher, and businessman. In 1939, he founded and directed a publishing house, Editora Guaíra, headquartered in Curitiba, Brazil. In 1940, he created the publishing house’s Estante Americana collection which was the first to feature Hispanic American novels by neighboring countries. The famous Brazilian novelist and translator, Jorge Amado, was asked for title suggestions and acted as a sort of unofficial director of the collection. Due to its powerful social critique, Amado recommended the inclusion of “Huasipungo,” a 1934 novel by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza. De Plácido e Silva translated and edited “Huasipungo” into Portuguese and wrote the preface for the book, which was dated June 1941. It was the book’s first-ever Portuguese translation; since then, two additional Portuguese translations have been made. It is worth noting that the collection’s most successful works were “Doña Bárbara,” by Venezuelan author Rómulo Gallegos (translated by Jorge Amado in 1940) and “Huasipungo” by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza (translated by De Plácido e Silva in 1941). A school in Pinhais, Brazil, “Colégio Estadual Oscar Joseph D’Plácido e Silva,” established in the year 2000, was named in his honor.

Continue reading “De Plácido e Silva”

Michael H. Handelsman

Michael H. Handelsman (Weehawken, New Jersey, United States, May 11, 1948) is an American university professor, scholar, literary critic, and writer. He is professor emeritus of Latin American literature at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he has been teaching since 1976. He has directed the university’s Latin American Studies and Global Studies programs. His principal area of specialization is Ecuadorian literature and culture. Some of his books include: “Amazonas y artistas: Un estudio de la prosa de la mujer Ecuatoriana” (1978), “Lo afro y la plurinacionalidad: el caso ecuatoriano visto desde su literatura” (1999), and “Leyendo la globalización desde la mitad del mundo: identidad y resistencias en el Ecuador” (2005) which received the Isabel Tobar Guarderas award in Quito and the A.B. Thomas award in the U.S. He’s also written extensively on Benjamín Carrión, including: “En torno al verdadero Benjamín Carrión” (1989), “El ideario de Benjamín Carrión” (1992) and “Benjamín Carrión: el pensamiento fundamental” (2007). He’s been a visiting professor at the University of Kentucky, the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil (UCSG), and the Simon Bolivar Andean University of Quito. Since November 12, 2012, he’s been a foreign corresponding member of Ecuador’s National Academy of Language.

Continue reading “Michael H. Handelsman”

Gustavo Abad Ordoñez

Gustavo Abad Ordoñez (Loja, 1968) is an Ecuadorian journalist, essayist, editor, and university professor. His articles have been published in numerous newspapers, including El Comercio, HOY, El Universo and El Telégrafo. His scholarly and journalistic books include: “El monstruo es el otro: La narrativa social del miedo en Quito” (2005), “Medios y movilidad humana. Pautas para informar sobre hechos migratorios” (2009), “El club de la pelea: Gobierno y medios, un entramado de fuerzas y debilidades” (2011), “Ecuavoley: La ovación voluntaria” (2011). He teaches at the Faculty of Social Communication (FACSO) at the Central University of Ecuador. He worked as an editor for the magazines Chasqui and Textos y contextos. In 2022 his book “Crónica de multitudes. La dimensión carnal de la escritura” (2021) was bestowed the “Isabel Tobar Guarderas” Award by the Municipality of Quito.

Continue reading “Gustavo Abad Ordoñez”

Olga Caro

Olga Caro Alda (April 25, 1949) is a French author, Hispanist, researcher, university professor, and lecturer. She holds a PhD in the Spanish language and has been teaching Latin American literature and culture at the Université du Maine in Le Mans, France. She specializes in the works of Ecuadorian novelist Jorge Icaza. In 1994, her interest in Icaza took her to Ecuador, where she extensively researched the author by exploring libraries and connecting with Icaza’s widow, Marina Moncayo. Marina graciously welcomed her into her home and provided access to Icaza’s personal archives, which Caro meticulously studied, photocopied, and photographed. During her research, Caro discovered two of Icaza’s long-lost stories, “Patrón Rafico” (published as “Capítulo para una novela inédita” in 1945) and “Fantasía reincidente” (1960). Impressed by her findings, Caro shared the news with Marina, who exclaimed, “It’s incredible, Jorge was looking for them to publish them and he couldn’t find them!” With the approval of Icaza’s daughters, Fenia and Cristina, Caro published a book in 2005 titled “Nouvelles de Jorge Icaza et études critiques” [Short stories by Jorge Icaza and critical studies]. The book featured the two rediscovered stories and included eight essays that Caro had previously written about Icaza.

Continue reading “Olga Caro”

Antonio Sacoto Salamea

Antonio Sacoto Salamea (Biblián, Cañar, Ecuador, November 30, 1932) is an Ecuadorian literary critic, essayist, and university professor. He has a PhD from Columbia University in New York. He has served as Director of Latin American Studies and Dean of the College of Romance Languages ​​at the City University of New York (CUNY). He has written around 20 books about Ecuadorian and Latin American literature. His first book was “The Indian in the Ecuadorian novel” (1967), wherein he analyzed the works of Jorge Icaza and Juan León Mera. The municipal library of the city of Azogues is named in his honor. He has been a member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Language since 2012.

Continue reading “Antonio Sacoto Salamea”

Pedro Artieda Santacruz

Pedro Artieda Santacruz (Quito, 1964) is a psychologist, novelist, short story writer, journalist, essayist, literary critic, and professor. In 2003, he published a study titled “La homosexualidad masculina en la narrativa ecuatoriana” [Male Homosexuality in Ecuadorian Narrative], which received the Manuela Saénz Prize in 2004. His first novel, “Nadie sabe con certeza” [Nobody Knows For Sure], was published in 2001, followed by the psychological science fiction novel “La última pared roja” [The Last Red Wall]. In 2011, he released a collection of short stories titled “Lo oculto de la noche” [The Hidden Night], and in 2013, his third novel “Bajo el hábito” [Beneath the Habit] received an honorable mention at the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Prize for Best Novel of the Year. This novel tells the story of a transgender Franciscan living in a monastery in Quito. Pedro Artieda Santacruz has contributed to newspapers such as El Comercio and Hoy, and his articles on literature, cinema, and gender have been published in various magazines including Diners, El Búho, and Vistazo, among others.

Continue reading “Pedro Artieda Santacruz”

Fernando Itúrburu

Fernando Itúrburu Rivadeneira (Guayaquil, 1960) is a writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, translator, and renowned scholar of Latin American literature. He is a Spanish professor in the Languages department at SUNY Plattsburgh where he has taught Latin American colonial and 20th century literatures, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and Creative Writing. Often in collaboration with American professor Alexis Levitin, also of SUNY Plattsburgh, he has translated various Ecuadorian poets from Spanish to English. In 2009, they published “Tapestry of the Sun,” a bilingual anthology of Ecuadorian poets, which includes first-time translations of various Ecuadorian poets, largely from Guayaquil. Their translations of Ecuadorian poetry have also appeared in several literary journals. He was a member of the Guayaquil literary group Sicoseo. He has been a member of the House of Ecuadorian Culture since 1984.

Continue reading “Fernando Itúrburu”

Arias Augusto

Arias Augusto Robalino (Quito, March 15, 1903 – Quito, August 23, 1974) was an Ecuadorian poet, essayist, biographer, anthologist, scholar, university professor, and literary critic. His poetry exemplifies modernismo in early twentieth-century Ecuador. His poetry collection “Del sentir” (1920) is considered one of the major works in Ecuadorian literature. He was a fervent scholar of Ecuadorian literature and as such wrote biographies on Ecuadorian authors such as Eugenio Espejo, Luis A. Martínez, and Pedro Fermín Cevallos. He also wrote several studies, such as “Panorama de la literatura ecuatoriana” (Quito, 1948), “España en los Andes” (Madrid, 1950), and ”El viajero de papel” (Quito, 1968), to name a few. He also compiled and edited the poetry anthology “Antología de poetas ecuatorianos” [Anthology of Ecuadorian Poets] (Quito, 1944) with Antonio Montalvo.

Continue reading “Arias Augusto”

Venedikt Vinogradov

Venedikt Stepanovich Vinogradov, or Виноградов В. (July 11, 1925 – August 15, 2009) was a prose writer, university professor, and renowned translator of Spanish-language literature into Russian. In his lifetime, he published more than 100 scientific papers and about 30 literary translations of novels, short stories and collections of short stories by Latin American and Spanish authors. The total circulation of these publications exceeds 2 million copies. In 1976, Vinogradov translated Ecuador’s most famous novel, “Huasipungo” by Jorge Icaza into Russian as “Уасипунго.” In Russian, Jorge Icaza’s name is spelled Хорхе Икаса.

Continue reading “Venedikt Vinogradov”

Giuseppe Bellini

Giuseppe Bellini (Isorella, October 23, 1923 – Milan June 19, 2016) was an Italian writer, literary critic, translator, university professor, and a leading Hispanist. He was a pioneer in Hispanic American literature studies in Italy and taught at a number of institutions, including: Bocconi University, University of Parma, University of Venice, and University of Milan. In 1961, Bellini translated his first work of prose, “Huasipungo,” a famous Ecuadorian novel originally written by Jorge Icaza in 1934. Over the course of his career, Bellini translated 81 works, wrote 69 volumes of literary criticism, and wrote over 500 essays and reviews. Bellini also translated works by Ciro Alegría, Pablo Neruda, and Miguel Ángel Asturias, among other Latin American authors.

more

Tibor Kobáň

Tibor Kobáň (1912-1996) was a Spanish-to-Slovak translator who in 1963 translated “En las calles,” a novel by Ecuador’s Jorge Icaza, as “Na uliciach” (literally, On The Streets). Self taught in Spanish and a lover of literature in Romance languages, in 1948 Kobáň created the first Spanish-to-Slovak translations of Latin American works. They were the novels “Miércoles santo” [Defilé hriechu] and “La noche toca a su fin” [Noc už pominula] by Manuel Gálvez and “El camino de las llamas” [Cesta lám] by Hugo Wast, well-known Argentinian writers of that time.

Continue reading “Tibor Kobáň”

Barbara Pregelj

Barbara Pregelj (April 12, 1970) is a Slovenian writer, editor, scholar of Spanish-language literature, researcher, translator, cultural promoter, and university professor. She’s the author of more than 20 scientific articles and 2 books, and has also translated over 40 books from Spanish to Slovenian. In 2001 she translated the Ecuadorian novel, “Huairapamuchcas,” by Jorge Icaza into Slovenian as “Huairapamuške: sinovi vetra” She has organized and coordinated many visits by foreign authors in Slovenia, along with visits by Slovenian authors to Spain, and several international symposia. She regularly presents papers at conferences, symposia and roundtables, both in Slovenia and abroad.

Continue reading “Barbara Pregelj”

Georges Pillement

Georges Pillement (March 23, 1898 — April, 14 1984) was a French writer, translator, Spanish and Hispano-American literature scholar, author of books on art and tourism, and photographer. In 1938, he translated “Huasipungo,” Ecuador’s most famous novel (written in 1934 by Jorge Icaza) into French as “La Fosse aux Indiens” (literally, The Indian Pit). It was the first time “Huasipungo” was translated into another language (it was eventually translated into over 40 languages by other translators, including Russian, Chinese, and English). Moreover, in 1945 he published a French anthology of Ecuadorian short stories entitled “Gens de l’Equateur,” which contained stories by José de la Cuadra, Gil Gilbert, Jorge Icaza, Gallegos Lara, A. Malta, H. Salvador. In his illustrious career, Georges Pillement won the Prix des Deux Magots for his novel “Plaisir d’amour” in 1937, and the French Academy’s Prix Louis Barthou in 1964 and the Prix Georges Dupau in 1975.

Continue reading “Georges Pillement”