Writers from Guayaquil - Ecuadorian Literature

Victoria Puig de Lange

Victoria Puig de Lange (Guayaquil, December 3, 1916 – Miami, May 14, 2008) was an Ecuadorian author, composer, diplomat, and influential figure in journalism and the fashion world. Throughout her long career, she held notable positions such as Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar (Spanish edition) and worked as a Latin American syndicated columnist. Puig’s autobiography, “Sol Con Agua,” blended elements of magic realism with her personal memoirs of a life surrounded by presidents, movie stars, and international personalities. She played a significant role in promoting Latin American designers, co-founding the first Latin American fashion week and being actively involved in major fashion events in London, Milan, and Paris. As a diplomat, Puig represented Ecuador as Consul General in Miami, while also showcasing her musical talents as a songwriter and performer. Recognized for her contributions, Puig received numerous accolades and awards, including Honorary Citizen of Florida and the Woman of the Year award in Ecuador. Victoria Puig de Lange left a lasting legacy in the realms of journalism, fashion, and cultural diplomacy.

Elisa Ayala González

Elisa Ayala González (Guayaquil, 1879) is considered the pioneer of short stories in the early decades of the 20th century in Ecuador. She grew up on a hacienda in the province of Los Ríos, where her father, Arcadio Ayala, a doctor, fostered her love for literature through his extensive library. Her writings were published in various Spanish, Uruguayan, Chilean, Argentinean, and Cuban magazines and newspapers. Her first short story, “La maldición,” was published in one of the international magazines to which her father subscribed. Ayala González’s works can be found in various anthologies, such as the “Antología de narradoras ecuatorianas,” by Miguel Donoso Pareja, and the “Antología básica del cuento ecuatoriano,” by Eugenia Viteri.

Mariasol Pons

Mariasol Pons Cruz (Guayaquil, 1979) is an Ecuadorian novelist. She left her hometown at the age of 19 and lived in France, Spain and Colombia before returning to Ecuador in 2012. She has authored 3 novels, “La Chica” (2013), “El libro de Olga” (2017), and “¿De quién son estas piernas?” (2021). Currently, she resides in Guayaquil and works as an editorialist for the newspapers Diario Expreso, Diario de Manabí, and La República.

Tamara Mejía Molina

Tamara Mejía Molina (Guayaquil, 1987) is an Ecuadorian poet and art critic. She is the author of several books, including “Esto soy yo, Marakaramazov,” “Historia esculpida de Manuel Velastegui,” and “Últimos días de una herida,” and has written more than 20 art criticism articles for cultural newspapers. Molina’s work as a poet has brought her international recognition, and she has been invited to participate in various poetry festivals in Ecuador and abroad. In 2022, her poetry book “Últimos días de una herida,” was awarded the Ileana Espinel Cedeño Poetry Festival Award.

Luis Delgadillo

Luis Delgadillo Avilés (Guayaquil, 1942 – September 13, 2022) was an Ecuadorian poet and journalist. He was part of a group of poets dubbed, “Generación Huracanada” [Hurricane Generation]. In 1971, he won the third national poetry prize. His poetry books include: “El rayo que ilumina” (1971), “Poemas de la marcha” (1977), and “Carta para un hijo y otros poemas” (1997). His non-fiction books include: “Leonardo Escobar Bravo, El ministro de los campesinos” (2006) and “La pepa de oro y el montubio” (2007), which focused on themes of the peasant class. He was a member of the literary section of the House of Ecuadorian Culture in Guayas.

Lily Pilataxi de Arenas

Lily Pilataxi de Arenas (Guayaquil, 1930) is an Ecuadorian author of children’s literature, poet, writer, journalist, diplomat and educator. As a feminist and advocate of women’s rights she authored “La Mujer y sus Derechos” [Women and their Rights] (1990). She has taught in Ecuador and Germany, and most recently served as rector of the Educational Unit Steiner (Unidad Educativa Steiner) in Guayaquil. Her teaching experiences in Germany (from 1963 to 1978) are chronicled in “Poema pedagógico No 2 y 3” [Pedagogical Poem Nos. 2 and 3]. Perhaps her most popular children’s story is “Doña cucaracha y la bolita de nieve” [Don︣a Cucaracha and the Snowball] (2010) which was translated into English, Geman and French. She has received numerous honors both inside and outside of Ecuador. She was awarded and designated an honorary member of The International Society of Poets, Writers, and Artists. (SIPEA). As a journalist, she wrote an opinion column for El Universo newspaper for 30 years, and was also an opinion columnist for El Telégrafo. She has given lectures in the United States, Europe and Africa.

Francisco Pérez Febres-Cordero

Francisco Pérez Febres-Cordero (Guayaquil, July 18, 1934 – Ibidem, August 31, 2010) was an Ecuadorian poet and journalist whose distinguished career at El Universo newspaper lasted four decades (1958-1998). Among his many accomplishments at El Universo was the creation of the Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest in 1959, which is regarded as one of the most prestigious poetry awards in Ecuador. He authored several poetry books, beginning with “Polvo de estrellas” [Star Dust] in 1951. His “Obras completas” [Complete Works] was published posthumously in 2020. From 1992 to 1998 he was Vice-director and Chairman of the Board of El Universo. In 1998, the year he retired from El Universo, he and one of his sons launched a bookstore named El Librero inside the Ríocentro Ceibos Mall, which, in 2008, they sold to the Librimundi group. In 2012, a bust of him was erected on “Avenida del Periodista” (Avenue of the Journalist) in Guayaquil.

Cristóbal Garcés Larrea

Cristóbal Garcés Larrea (Guayaquil, April 20, 1924 – May 2017) was an Ecuadorian poet, editor, and literary critic. He was the editor-in-chief of Cuadernos del Guayas, the official magazine of the Guayas chapter of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, which was created by Carlos Zevallos Menéndez and whose prior editors-in-chief were Adalberto Ortiz and Francisco Pérez Febres Cordero (albeit for short periods). In 1944, he and Galo René Pérez, Jorge Enrique Adoum and Enrique Noboa Elizaga published the literary magazine Madrugada. In 1970, he released a book series that included stories by then-contemporary writers from certain Latin American countries or regions (which he compiled and edited), including: “Narradores Centroamericanos Contemporáneos,” “Narradores Cubanos Contemporáneos,” “Narradores Colombianos Contemporáneos,” and “Narradores Brasileños Contemporáneos.” He published several of his poems in magazines in Ecuador but a collection of his poems has never been published as a book. He worked for many years as a professor.

Jorge Luis Pérez Armijos

Jorge Luis Pérez Armijos (Guayaquil, 1987) is an Ecuadorian, poet, essayist, editor, and translator. He has authored 4 poetry books, including “Rimas sin sarcasmos” (2012), “Primavera en invierno” (2014), “Lira bien temperada” (2016), and “Clases de catalán” (2018). His best known work is perhaps “Aquel que pudo ver lo Profundo” (2019), a poetic translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. In 2020 he published, “La risa: Ensayo sobre el significado de lo cómico,” a French-to-Spanish annotated translation of “Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique” [Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic], a collection of 3 essays by French philosopher Henri Bergson first published in 1900 in the French literary magazine Revue de Paris. He has also published a translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, entitled “Variaciones Shakespeare” (2017), and Shakespeare’s narrative poem, “Venus y Adonis” (2021).

Ángel Emilio Hidalgo

Ángel Emilio Hidalgo Ortiz (Guayaquil, 1973) is an Ecuadorian historian, a poet, a professor at Guayaquil’s University of the Arts (UArtes) since 2014, and the director of the Guayaquil Municipal Library since 2021. His poetry collections include “Beberás de estas aguas” (1997, First Prize in the Ismael Pérez Pazmiño National Poetry Contest), “El trazado del tiempo” (2003, honorable mention in the National Literature Contest of the Guayaquil Municipality), “Fulgor de la derrota” (2010), and “Acapulco so close” (2021). Hidalgo’s poems have been published in various Ecuadorian and Latin American anthologies. such as “Porque nuestro es el exilio” (2006), which features the poetry of three Ecuadorian authors, Ángel Emilio Hidalgo, Luis Carlos Mussó and Ernesto Carrión, as well as Fabián Darío Mosquera, a Colombian poet living in Guayaquil. In addition, he is the co-author of more than 20 books of historical and cultural essays and is a member of Ecuador’s National Academy of History.

Othón Muñoz Alvear

Othón Muñoz Alvear (Guayaquil, Jan 14, 1945 – August 9,2014) was an Ecuadorian poet, columnist, writer, anthologist, theater actor, teacher, and politician. He’s considered the greatest of the “Hurricane Generation,” a group of poets in the 1970s who all contributed to a book of the same name. He authored poetry books and won several prizes and national literary contests. His poem, “Breves noticias de sus vidas breves,” won first prize at the Ismael Pérez Pazmiño National Poetry Contest held by the newspaper El Universo in 1978. He presided over the Guayaquil Municipal Cultural Center and the Association of Educational Journalists. He is perhaps best known for his poems “Mamacity” and “Y te vuelvo a fundar en la esquina de mi barrio,” which pay homage to his native city of Guayaquil.

Jorge Vargas Chavarría

Jorge Vargas Chavarría (Guayaquil, 1992) is an Ecuadorian writer, teacher, and chemical engineer. He has authored three short story collections, “Aquí empieza lo extraño” (2016), “Las cosas que no decimos” (2018), and “Una boca sin dientes” (2022), which won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Prize.

Margarita Dager-Uscocovich

Margarita Dager-Uscocovich (Guayaquil, October 31, 1967) is an Ecuadorian fiction writer, poet, and columnist. Her debut novel, “No es tiempo de morir” was published in Spanish in 2018 and in English in 2019. Her second novel “Las queremos vivas” (2021), deals with the global trafficking of women, and has Guayaquil and Charlotte, N.C as settings. Her short stories and micro-stories have been published in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay and the United States. Her poems have been published in the online magazine labelmelatina.com. She is a columnist for the Destinos section of the online magazine La Nota Latina in Miami, FL and Revista Latina NC. She currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.

María Alban Estrada

María Alban Estrada (Guayaquil, February 28, 1939) is an Ecuadorian writer, investigative journalist, and editor. Her book “Con dios todo se puede: La invasión de las sectas al Ecuador” (written with Juan Pablo Muñoz) was the best-selling book in Ecuador in 1987. She worked as the editor-in-chief of Vistazo magazine between 1982 and 1985. She also held the positions of director of the investigative unit of Diario Expreso and general editor of Vistazo magazine. In 1988 she was awarded a scholarship, which allowed her, as a special observer, to attend investigative journalism schools in New York, Missouri, Kansas, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. She was also an active member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a grassroots nonprofit organization headquartered in Columbia, Missouri dedicated to improving the quality of journalism by educating, empowering and connecting journalists across the globe.

Edgar Allan García

Edgar Allan García (Guayaquil, December 17, 1958) is an Ecuadorian writer and cultural promoter. He has 74 books to his credit, including short stories, poetry, novels, biography, nonfiction, essays and children’s literature. His works have been published in Ecuador, Spain, Peru, Mexico and Argentina. His book “Leyendas del Ecuador” is read in primary and secondary schools while his young adult novel “El rey del mundo” was chosen as part of Argentina’s national reading program. His poetry and short stories have also been included in several anthologies, and in 2010 he was included in Jaime García Padrino’s “Great Dictionary of Latin American Authors of Children’s and Youth Literature.” He also serves as the director of Ecuador’s José de la Cuadra National Book and Reading Plan. Some of his stories have been translated into French.