Adriano González León
Adriano González León | |
---|---|
Political |
Adriano González León (
González León studied at the
Biography
Early life
At the age of fifteen, González León was an Andean region correspondent for the daily,
Literary career
His first forays into literature were as a short story writer. In 1956, won second prize in the annual short story competition sponsored by the Caracas daily newspaper, El Nacional for "El Lago" (The Lake).[1] In three subsequent collections of short stories, he described somber, dramatic urban and rural environments.
The 1968 novel, País portátil, is an epic, set in González León's native Trujillo State, of the Barazarte family constructed out of the recollections of its youngest son, Andrés. The work was made into a film in 1979 under the same title (directed by Iván Feo and Antonio Llerandi).
Among the distinctions he was awarded are the Premio Nacional de Literatura (National Award for Literature) in 1980 and an honorary doctorate from Universidad Católica Cecilio Acosta (Unica) in Maracaibo in 2003.
He was a collaborator on the literary magazine, Letra Roja (Red Letter) and in a group of painters, sculptors, and writers, El Techo de la Ballena (The Roof of the Whale).
González León was long active as a popularizer of literature to the Venezuelan public. For 15 years he hosted a television show on literature, Contratema, on the Venezuelan government channel (Televisora Nacional, channel 5). After 2000, he returned to the daily, El Nacional, where he had been a teenage reporter, to write a weekly column. In 2006, he was one of four national authors who offered semester length courses in creative writing to the public,[2] under a project called Escribas (this Spanish word means both "Scribes" and "May you write"). In the 1990s, while a diplomat in Spain, he had been a collaborator and presenter on a television based writing instruction program, Taller Abierto (Open Workshop) of Television Educativa Iberoamericana.
Other activities
In the 1960s, León was appointed the first secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy in Argentina. Upon returning to Venezuela, he worked as a professor in the Economics Department of UCV. In 1986, he played Tío Pancho in the Venezuelan film, Ifigenia. In the mid-1990s, served as a cultural attaché at the Venezuelan embassy in Spain.
Works
Short stories
- 1957. Las hogueras más altas (The highest bonfires). Buenos Aires: Goyanarte, 1959. Winner of the Premio Municipal de Prosa.
- 1963. Asfalto-Infierno y otros relatos demoniacos. Caracas: El Techo de la Ballena.
- 1967. Hombre que daba sed. Buenos Aires: Jorge Álvarez.
- 1988. Linaje de árboles. Caracas: Planeta.
- 1998. Crónicas del rayo y de la lluvia. Caracas: Contexto Audiovisual-Pomaire.
- 1998. Todos los cuentos más Uno. Alfaguara.
Novels
- 1968. País portátil. Seix Barral. Winner of the Biblioteca Breve prize.[3]
- 1995. Viejo. Alfaguara.
Poetry
- 1979. Damas
- 1980. De ramas y secretos. Caracas: Rayuela.
- 1997. Hueso de mis huesos (illustrated by Manuel Quintana Castillo). Caracas: Rayuela.
Other
- 1982. El libro de las escrituras (silkscreens of Marco Miliani); Ediciones de Galería Durban-Arte Dos, Caracas-Bogotá.
- 1985. Solosolo.
- 1996. El viejo y los leones (children's story). Caracas: Rayuela.
- 2001. Viento blanco. Caracas: Rayuela.
See also
Notes
- ^ El Tiempo, 1 February 2002
- ^ Letralia, No. 146, 7 August 2006
- ISBN 9788466000277.
References
- 2002. El Tiempo (Venezuela). Adriano González León: Pasión por la Letra 1 Feb 2002. In Spanish
- 2006. Letralia: Tierra de Letras. An Internet magazine of Hispanoamerican letters. Vol. 6, No. 146, 7 Aug 2006. In Spanish
- País Portátil, the movie, in IMDB.com
Further reading
- 2004. Balderston, Daniel & Mike Gonzalez, eds. Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean literature, 1900-2003. Routledge.
- 2008. Cruz, Juan. Obituary of Adriano González León in El País (Madrid), 14 Jan 2008. In Spanish.