Arturo Uslar Pietri Biography

Arturo Uslar Pietri

(Caracas, 1906-2001) Venezuelan writer and politician.After Rómulo Gallegos, he is the Venezuelan writer who has enjoyed the most celebrity and consideration in the 20th century.His novel Las lanzas coloradas (1931), with which he became known when he was barely twenty-five years old, contributed to forging the highly Spanish-American tradition of “magical realism”.

Arturo Uslar Pietri

His parents were Arturo Uslar Santamaría, of German descent, and Helena Pietri Paúl, a descendant of Corsicans settled in the state of Sucre.His paternal great-grandfather, General Juan Uslar, fought in the War of Independence, and his maternal grandfather, General Juan Pietri, was president of the Governing Council at the beginning of the Juan Vicente Gómez regime.Both his father and grandfather were generals in the Venezuelan army.

Uslar always boasted of descending from fighters for the Independence of Venezuela and servants of the country, and he used to highlight the presence in his family trunk of an aide-de-camp of Simón Bolívar and of two presidents of Venezuela, Carlos Soublette and Juan Pablo Rojas Paúl.It is not surprising, with such a family background and the deep sense of historical and civic responsibility that his parents instilled in him since he was a child, that Arturo Uslar Pietri directed a good part of his efforts to carve out a political career.The public offices he held are legion.He was minister three times: of Education (1939-1941), of Finance (1943) and of Internal Relations (1945).He held the Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic (1941-1943) in the mandate of Isaías Medina Angarita.

This largely explains his always critical and distant attitude towards power during the long period of the Fourth Republic (1958-1998).During this period he accepted only one official position, that of representative of Venezuela to UNESCO, in Paris, in the mid-1970s.In 1983, when the debt crisis broke out and the depth of the bankruptcy was revealed for the first time The country's economic economy, did not hold his tongue to point out one of its deepest roots: "Venezuela is tired of the old and rotten record of populist promises with which it has never been able to get ahead.Populism is, in an immense proportion, the causing all the negative results that we have faced in these years ".

The prestige of Uslar Pietri in Venezuela was enormous.Their opinions on any matter were expected and, in some cases, feared.Long before entering old age he saw his works entering the curricula of schools and high schools.Every Venezuelan born in the 1950s has necessarily had to read a page by this writer.He waited in vain for the award he most coveted: the Cervantes Prize.But no other Venezuelan writer won as many prizes and awards for his narrative work as he did, including the most prestigious novel award in the Hispanic world, the Rómulo Gallegos, and he has been the only Venezuelan to receive it.

The decision of the jury for the Prince of Asturias Award, which was awarded in 1990 for the novel The visit in time , recognized Arturo Uslar Pietri as the "creator of the novel history in Latin America, whose incessant and fruitful literary activity has uniquely contributed to enliven our common language, illuminate the imagination of the New World, and enrich the cultural continuity of the Americas." One of the members of the jury, the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, judged that Uslar has forged "a modern conception of the novel, offering the shadows and lights of the historical process", and that he is the precursor of a conception of literature in the that other authors are recognized, such as the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez.

Comments

The Legend of the Holy Grail

No other medieval fable is so rich in symbolism, so diverse and, in many cases, as contradictory in its meaning as the legend of the Holy Grail . Is there any historical proof that allows us to suppose that there was a Grail that could be found? Or its legend is nothing more than a charming literary tale created by troubadours to entertain the members of the European courts? The legend of the Grail was recorded in history at the end of the 13th century.The mind of a talented French poet called Chretien de Troyes . However, when he wrote his Grail Story , Chretien included a host of pre-Christian elements.The legend went back, in fact, several centuries ago, to the Celtic stories of King Arthur , to the Irish tales, to the Welsh bards, where Christianity had not yet arrived. In fact, for the first Christian narrator of the legend of the Grail , Chretien de Troyes , the Holy Grail was not even a glass, but appears as a lavish and magical dish whose function is ...

Ilias Venezis Biography

Ilias Venezis (Aivali, Asia Minor, 1904-Athens, 1973) Greek writer.The novel Matrícula 31328 (1931), which recounts his experience of deportation after the Greco-Turkish war (1920-1921), is his main work.He is also the author of novels ( Serenidad , 1939; Tierra eolia, 1943, and Los vancidos, 1954), of short stories ( The archipelago, 1969), from travel books ( Autumn in Italy, 1950, and Eftalón y viajes, 1973) and from the historical essay Los argonauts (1962).

The fusion of the Romans and Germans

In the first years of the 5th century, the Germanic peoples , pushed by the Hungarian horsemen, crossed the Roman borders and entered the Roman Empire of the West. At the beginning of the 6th century, these villages were installed in the ruins of a Rome that had been unable to maintain control in its vast territory. The date of 476 marks in the traditional history the break between existence of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a new order arbitrarily called the " Middle Ages ", however, that new order was not built overnight and, Changes in everyday life did not have the rhythm of the hectic political sphere. During this period of slow social transformation, there was a coexistence throughout the European territory between two types of and different cultures, the Roman and the germanica . It took long years for communities to associate to the point of mixing their traditions and forming a true nation.The obstacles to this merger were certainly numero...

X-ray history

The X-rays were discovered in 1895 and from there they became a very revolutionary application in many branches of science, from astronomy to radiographs that we have not done so many times.the 120th anniversary of the X-rays knowing his inventor and the research that led him to such an important scientific advance. Article index Who invented the X-rays? The inventor or, rather, the person who discovered the X-rays was Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen , a German physicist who was focused on the field of electromagnetics Nothing else to present his discovery, Rontgen's theory received great attention from critics and public, and was translated into French, English or Russian. Although it is not a name as well known today as that of others you celebrate writers, the name of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen is written in gold letters in the medical field, where he has had and has and numerous applications.The importance of his discovery was such in his day that he was the first Nobel Prize ...

Josep Maria Figueras Biography

Josep Maria Figueras (Josep Maria Figueras Bassols; Barcelona, 1928-1994) Spanish businessman and politician.He studied law at the University of Barcelona and political and economic sciences in Madrid and Georgetown (United States). Initially dedicated to business in the real estate sector, he later moved on to other business branches.Founder of the Center for Contemporary History Studies (1966), after Franco's death and during the transition to democracy, he promoted the liberal party Acció Democràtica de Catalunya (1976) and the Lliga Liberal de Catalunya (1977), but withdrew from the politics after getting few votes. Later he chaired the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce (since 1979), the Higher Council of Chambers of Commerce of Spain (1979-1986) and the Barcelona Trade Fair (1979-1987), among other institutions , and was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Barcelona Olympic Games and director of numerous companies. The liberal and Catalan political ideology of J...

Carlos Suriñach Biography

Carlos Suriñach (Barcelona, 1915-New Haven, Connecticut, 1997) Spanish composer and conductor, nationalized from the United States.Trained in Barcelona, Cologne and Berlin, he spent most of his career in the US.His work, symphonic, for stage and chamber, is influenced by flamenco ( Andalusian dance , 1946; Magic Fair , 1956; Spanish Suite , 1970; Concerto for piano and orchestra , 1973).

Grace Querejeta Biography

Gracia Querejeta (Gracia Querejeta Marín; Madrid, 1962) Spanish film director.Daughter of the costume designer María del Carmen Marín Maiki and the film producer Elías Querejeta, she studied Geography and History at university and received a degree in Ancient History.Although she never wanted to be an actress, she had two circumstantial appearances in front of the cameras: the first, when she was only seven years old, in the film Las secretas intenciones by Antxon Eceiza, and the second when, at the age of thirteen., played a small role in Las Palabras de Max , by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro. Gracia Querejeta His first professional experience behind a Camera was as assistant director in Sweet hours (1981), directed by Carlos Saura and with his father as producer.After finishing his degree, he had the opportunity to direct Tres en la marca in 1988, as part of the collective project Seven footprints , with which he won the Arriaga Theater Award in Bilbao.The film Seven footp...

The history of the flags of the world

Maybe you've ever stopped to think where the flags come from, because they have those colors or shapes, because some have drawings and others have stripes.Because there are flags of different countries that are very similar, it may be a coincidence or perhaps they have something in common.To this and other questions we will answer in this article that we have titled The history of the flags of the world. History of the flags of the world | Origin of the Flags The flags are responsible for generating the identity signals of a country , it is the embodiment of a series of values that hold a community together or region that share a series of characteristics, whether geographical, cultural or historical. When several nations have shared a common period in history, it is normal that they also share symbols, examples such as the flags of the Nordic countries or as with New Zealand and Australia. Today all countries are represented by their corresponding flag, but ...

Joseph H. Maclagan Wedderburn Biography

Joseph H.Maclagan Wedderburn (Forfar, 1882-Princeton, 1948) British mathematician.Professor at Princeton University, he was editor of the Proceedings of the Edinburgh mathematical society (1905-1909) and the Annals of mathematics (1912-1928).He stated a theorem ( Wedderburn's theorem ) according to which every finite field is commutative.

Heidemarie Rosendahl Biography

Heidemarie Rosendahl (Hückeswagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, 1947) German athlete.He obtained the gold medals in the long jump and the 4 × 100 m relay, and the silver in the pentathlon, at the Olympic Games in Munich (1972).

History Today Online

Search This Blog