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

Camilo Sesto Biography

Camilo Sesto (Camilo Blanes Cortés; Alcoy, Alicante, 1946-Madrid, 2019) Spanish singer of light music, one of the most popular figures of the 1970s in Spain and Latin America.Initially interested in painting, in 1965 he joined a short-lived pop group called Los Botines. Camilo Sesto Five years later, in 1970, he began his solo career (at that time with the stage name of Camilo Sexto) and debuted discographically with the single "Llegará el verano".Later, with the former member of Los Brincos Juan Pardo as producer, he adapted a Brahms piece to pop with the title "Buenas noches", which was relatively successful.They were followed by "A ti, Manuela", "Ay, ay, Roseta" and the popular song "Algo de mi" (1972), nominated by the chain Ser as song of the summer.A year later, in November, he participated in the OTI International Festival as a representative of Televisión Española with the song "Algo más", composed by Juan Calde...

Josef Willem Mengelberg Biography

Josef Willem Mengelberg (Utrecht, 1871-Zuort, 1951) Dutch conductor.He studied in his hometown with Richard Hol, Henri Wilhelm Petri and Anton Averkamp and later moved to Cologne (Germany), in whose conservatory he studied theory and counterpoint with G.Jensen, piano with I.Seiss and organ with F.W.Franke, in addition to directing and composing with Franz Wüllner. He was musical director of the Lucerne Conservatory in 1892 and years later, in 1895, he obtained the position of director of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held until 1945.He also continued directing the Museum Concerts group in Frankfurt between 1907 and 1920.From 1899 he annually conducted the Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir in its interpretation of the Passion According to Saint Matthew by JS Bach. He also conducted the American National Symphony Orchestra in New York between 1920 and 1929 and was principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1921 until he left it due to differen...

Jose Triadó Mayol Biography

José Triadó Mayol (Barcelona, 1870- id ., 1929) Spanish draftsman, former bookseller and painter.He collaborated with his drawings in the magazines El gato negro (1898), Album Salón (1898-1899) and Hispania (1899-1902).Outstanding author of ex libris, as a painter he made the triptych Las Cortes de Manresa for the Sant Jordi room of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

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 ...

History of the feminist movement in Spain

Do you know what the term feminism really means? Many people confuse it with what is called feminism, in order to define it we will talk about the history of feminism in Spain. In today's article we will mention: Definition of feminism The feminist movement Fight for equality between both genders and not for the superiority of women over men (feminism).The first theoretical references we find about feminism come from the time of French Enlightenment, this movement was born to fight for women's rights. History of feminism in Spain From the establishment of the first Republic women begin to have more rights as the right to vote, but it is not until the establishment of the second Republic when the Spanish feminist movement does not acquire so much strength. There are three women who stand out, Clara Campoamor , Victoria Kent and Margarita Nelken who became the first deputies of the Spanish Cortes, women we can still hear about. Later, they are many more wome...

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.

Josef sudek Biography

Josef Sudek (Kolín, 1896-Prague, 1976) Czechoslovakian photographer.It began with landscapes and panoramas of Prague in which it followed the pictorial style.Later he concentrated on everyday objects, romantic interiors, still lifes and portraits.

Cesar Uribe Piedrahita Biography

César Uribe Piedrahita (Medellín, 1897-Bogotá, 1951) Colombian doctor and writer.Wise in science and letters, in his time he embodied the ideal of Renaissance humanism, and left a brief but intense literary production characterized by his deep concern for the problems of his nation and, in general, for the demand for a series of social reforms, political, economic and cultural that contribute to improve the living conditions of the less favored classes. In his youth, inclined towards the study of scientific disciplines, he studied Medicine at the University of Antioquia, where he graduated in 1922 to complete his medical training in the North American classrooms of Harvard.He was soon considered an eminence in his facultative specialty (parasitology), before leaving Harvard University he had already carried out various teaching and research functions there, for which, on his return to his native country, he was appointed director of the National Institute of Hygiene. From this p...

Jose Mauri Biography

José Mauri (Valencia, 1856-Havana, 1937) Spanish composer.Installed in Cuba for most of his life, he founded the conservatory that bears his name there (1914).His work includes numerous songs and the opera The Slave (1921).

Joseph Reinach Biography

Joseph Reinach (Paris, 1856-1921) French journalist.He started in the journalistic profession through the Parisian newspaper La République Française , where from 1877 he began to publish interesting political analyzes that placed him at the epicenter of French public life in the last quarter of the century XIX.He acquired such importance in such a short space of time that in 1881, following the proclamation in France of the Third Republic, President León Gambetta called him to his side to place all his trust in him and appoint him head of his secretariat. At only thirty years old (1886), he became editor-in-chief of La République Française .Once this position was released, he directed a noisy journalistic campaign from the pages of the newspaper against the nationalist and populist politics of Georges Boulanger (the " General Revanche ").With this and other similar matters of maximum national interest, Joseph Reinach continued to rise in French public life and, in 188...

History Today Online

Search This Blog