Miguel Otero Silva

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Miguel Otero Silva
Caracas, Venezuela
Occupationjournalist, novelist, poet, politician
NationalityVenezuelan
Notable worksCasas Muertas (1955)
Signature

Miguel Otero Silva (October 26, 1908 – August 28, 1985), was a

Venezuelan Senate
.

Early career

Born in

Élite and Fantoches, as well as other university publications. He also started dabbling in journalism
.

Fort Amsterdam of Willemstad which was taken by Venezuelan revolutionaries in 1929.

During the country's Student’s Week in 1928, Otero Silva formed part in a series of

Comintern
.

1935–1958

He was able to return to

communist, the government forced him into exile once again in 1937. During his three years of exile he travelled extensively through Mexico, United States and Colombia.[3]

Once back in Venezuela, he co-founded the humorous weekly newspaper

leftist weekly paper called, ¡Aquí Está!
(Here It Is! ).

In 1943 Otero Silva's father,

Universidad Central de Venezuela. In 1946, he married María Teresa Castillo, a fellow journalist,[4] graduating from university in 1949. Two years later, Otero left the Communist Party of Venezuela, claiming that he wasn't ready for political discipline. Instead, he chose to dedicate himself to his writing. He spent a year in Guárico, investigating the history of the village of Ortiz, since its initial foundation to its abandonment due to malaria breakout. The village served as inspiration for his next novel, Casas Muertas, published in 1955. The novel was awarded with the Premio Nacional de Literatura
, and the Premio de Novela Arístides Rojas that same year.

His newspaper, El Nacional, was suspended twice during the military rule of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Towards the end of the dictatorship, Otero Silva was arrested for editing and publishing the Manifiesto de los Intelectuales (Intellectuals Manifesto), a text attacking Pérez Jiménez' administration.

1958–1985

After

El Nacional was once more criticized for espousing communist and leftist ideals, this time by the new government of Rómulo Betancourt
. The Government's discontent with the newspaper caused Otero Silva to resign from active journalism.

His fictional works from the period include Oficina N° 1, in 1961, and La Muerte de Honorio in 1963, along with Las Celestiales in 1965, a book of couplets with humorous references to politics, ideologies, and religion, which he signed as "Iñaki de Errandonea", a fictional jesuit priest invented by Otero himself.

In 1967, Otero Silva was made a full member of the

Galería de Arte Nacional. In 1979, Otero was awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize
.

In 1985, shortly after publishing La Piedra que era Cristo, Otero Silva died in Caracas on August 28.

Honours

Bibliography

Novels

  • Fiebre (Fever, 1939)
  • Casas Muertas (Dead Houses, 1955)
  • Oficina N° 1 (Office N° 1, 1961)
  • La Muerte de Honorio (The Death of Honorio, 1963)
  • Cuando quiero llorar no lloro (When I want to cry, I don't, 1970)[5]
  • Lope de Aguirre, Príncipe de la Libertad (Lope de Aguirre, Prince of Freedom, 1979)
  • La Piedra que era Cristo (The Stone that was Christ, 1985)

Poetry

  • Agua y Cauce (Water and Ditch, 1937)
  • 25 poemas (25 poems, 1942)
  • Elegía coral a Andrés Eloy Blanco (Coral Elegy to Andrés Eloy Blanco, 1958)
  • La Mar que es el Morir (1965)
  • Las Celestiales (The Celestials, 1965)
  • Umbral (1966)

Trivia

  • In the first five novels by Otero, the number of words comprising the title are the same as the number of order in which they are published. Fiebre, the first novel by Otero, has only one word; the second, Casas Muertas, has two; and so until Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro, the fifth novel with a five-word title. After this, the pattern is not followed anymore. This may seem as an intentional detail by Otero.
  • In 2006 Argenis Martínez made a biographical book about the life of Miguel Otero Silva, for the Biblioteca Biográfica Venezolana, with the seal of
    El Nacional
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c d (in Spanish) venezuelatuya.com, Rafael Simón Urbina
  2. ^ "Overval op fort Amsterdam in Willemstad op Curaçao door de Venezolaanse revolutionair Urbina (8 juni 1929)" (in Dutch). Ministry of Defense. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  3. ^ Mantilla, Jesús Ruiz (2021-02-14). "Madrid, el epicentro del exilio venezolano". El País. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  4. El Nacional (Caracas)
    . Retrieved 2012-06-22.
  5. ^ Dedicated to his son, Miguel Henrique Otero. Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro, p7.

External links

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