Arturo Uslar Pietri

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Arturo Uslar Pietri (born May 16, 1906 in Caracas , † February 26, 2001 ibid) was a Venezuelan writer , diplomat and politician . Uslar Pietri is considered an important representative of modern Latin American literature. He is a descendant of the German Johann von Uslar , who fought on the side of Simón Bolívar in the wars of independence .

Live and act

Arturo Uslar Pietri, who came from a traditional military family, grew up in Venezuela during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez . In his youth he came into contact with European and Russian literature. He wrote the leading article in the magazine válvula (January 1928), which appeared shortly before the Semana de Estudiante, which degenerated into massive political protest. The text contains a literary program for the renewal of the Creole literature, which in the author's opinion is deadlocked. At the end of 1928 Uslar Pietri published his first volume of stories: Barrabas and other stories , in which he implemented the innovations that were being propagated.

His most famous work is Las lanzas coloradas (The Red Lances), which depicts both the Creole upper class struggling for political freedom under the leadership of Simón Bolívar and the slaves fighting for individual freedom under the leadership of Boves in the wars of independence at the beginning of the 18th century. Century developed. He wrote this novel in Paris and published it in Madrid in 1931 . A German and a French translation followed in 1932, a development that prepared the ground for international recognition. In 1934 Uslar Pietri, who had been a diplomat in Paris since 1929, returned to his homeland. When the dictator died in December 1935, Uslar Pietri became involved in journalism , held important posts in government and in 1939 became the youngest minister of education in Venezuelan history. As secretary to the president and interior minister, he was the target of the Acción Democrática party , which overthrew incumbent President Isaías Medina Angarita in 1945.

Uslar Pietri lived in exile in New York from 1945 to 1950. As a visiting professor for literary studies , he published the now famous essay El criollo en la literatura , where the term “realismo magico” is used for the first time. During this time he wrote his novel El Camino de El Dorado (1947), published in German in 1966 under the title Rauch über El Dorado , which dealt with the search for the imaginary realm of Eldorado and the biography of Lope de Aguirres . In 1949, after a long break (the last short stories were published under the title Red ( Netz ) 1936), he published the Treinta hombres y sus sombras collection , which, as the title suggests, illuminates the darker side of man. The plays El Día de Antero Albán , La Tebaida , El Dios Invisible , La fuga de Miranda and Chuo Gil y las tejedoras also belong to this category of the analysis of the magical, the strange and the unconscious .

In the unfinished trilogy El laberinto de fortuna , he addressed the country's political development. The titles Un retrato en la geografía (1962) and La estación de máscaras (1964) already give an idea of ​​the core theme of the two novels: The question of Venezuelan identity, which is derived from geography, history and social roles, the masks, must be crystallized out. His presidential candidacy in 1963 was unsuccessful, which is probably one reason why the trilogy was not brought to an end.

As a senator, he helped shape the political landscape of his homeland in the 1960s. At the same time, he used television as an educational medium: In the program Valores Humanos , he presented the most prominent personalities from science and history who had decisively shaped the development of his country. In 1976 the novel was published with the ambiguous Spanish title Oficio de difuntos ( Funeral Mass or Craft of the Dead ), a fictional biography of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, whom he had known personally. The response in Venezuela to this work was rather subdued. In 1980 he published La Isla de Robinson , a novel about Bolívar's educator, followed in 1990 by La Visita en el Tiempo , which deals with the life of the Lepanto winner Don Juan de Austria . Uslar Pietri only received official literary honors from the end of the 1970s, the crowning achievement being the Prince of Asturias Prize (1990) and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize awarded in Venezuela in 1991.

Politically, the author, who has published around 70 short stories and 4,000 essays in addition to his novels, viewed himself as a persona non grata . As recently as 1999, Uslar Pietri spoke out actively in the election campaign, but in vain, for the presidential candidate Salas Römer and against Hugo Chávez . Arturo Uslar Pietri died on February 26, 2001 with the reputation of being the “conscience of the nation”.

Works

  • Barrabás y otros relatos , 1928
  • Las lanzas coloradas , 1931 (German by GH Neuendorff: The red lances , 1932)
  • Red , 1936
  • Oficio de difuntos , 1976
  • La Isla de Robinson
  • La visita en el tiempo , 1990
  • El Camino de El Dorado , 1947 (German by Maria Bamberg: Rauch über El Dorado , 1966)
  • Un retrato en la geografía , 1962
  • La estación de máscaras , 1964
  • Pasos y pasajeros , 1966
  • Los ganadores , 1980
  • The wolf cub. in 26 stories from Venezuela. Edited by Carlos Rincón . Explorations (book series) . Verlag Volk und Welt , Berlin 1981, 1983

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Froilán Ramos Rodríguez: Ideas pedagógicas de Arturo Uslar Pietri. In: Dialnet. Teré Science Magazine, 2008, accessed October 16, 2019 (Spanish).
personal data
SURNAME Uslar Pietri, Arturo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venezuelan writer, diplomat and politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Caracas
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 2001
Place of death Caracas