Volodia Teitelboim

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Volodia Teitelboim Volosky is a Chilean lawyer, politician and author, born in the city of Chillan on March 17, 1916.

The son of Jewish immigrants (Ukrainian Moises Teitelboim and Moldovian Sara Volosky), Volodia was interested in literature from an early age. He finished high school (as well as served in the Communist Youth starting at age sixteen), then began his studies in the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, where at graduation he presented his superior thesis “The Dawn of Capitalism- The Conquest of America”.

During the 1940s he suffered, along with all the militants of the Chilean Communist Party, persecution and exile, under the ruling of the Democatic Defense Law (also known as Ley maldita). He was treated and detained in Pisagua. In 1965 he was elected senator of Santiago, remaining in this position until the coup of September 11, 1973. During the rule of Pinochet he lived in exile in Moscow, where he developed the program Listen Chile. He clandestinely infiltrated the Militant Regiment, presenting them to the authorities in 1988. The next year he was elected president of the Communist Party, a position he held until 1994.

Teitelboim was formerly married to Rachel Weitzmann, with whom he raised a son named Claudio Teitelboim. However, in 2005 it was discovered that Claudio's father was actually the lawyer Álvaro Bunster.

Teitelboim's literary work, for which he was awarded Chile's National Prize in Literature in 2002, as well as the Literature prize of the 1931 Flower Games, is chiefly in the form of memoirs, biographies, and literary essays. His first book Antología de poesía chilena (Anthology of Chilean Poetry) was published in conjunction with Eduardo Anguita in 1932, and compiled the great poets of Chile. He would later say that it committed the errors of omitting Gabriela Mistral and of accentuating the dispute between Vicente Huidobro, Pablo de Rokha, and Pablo Neruda. His series of memoirs, Un muchacho del siglo XX (A Boy of the Twentieth Century, 1997), La gran guerra de Chile y otra que nunca existió (The Great War of Chile and Another That Never Existed, 2000) and Noches de radio (Radio Nights, 2001) present from a political and social perspective the great arch of Chilean history during the 20th century. His best known capacity is that of a biographer, in which he wrote about Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Huidobro, and with the most critical acclaim, Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. In terms of membership in literary movements, he is generally located within the Chilean Generation of '38.

[edit] List of Published Works

• Antología de poesía chilena (Anthology of Chilean Poetry) - 1935
• El amanecer del capitalismo. La conquista de América (The dawn of capitalism. The conquest of America) - 1943
• Hijo del salitre (Son of saltpeter) - 1952
• La semilla en la arena. Pisagua (The seed in the sand) - 1957
• Hombre y hombre (Man and man) - 1969
• El oficio ciudadano (The duty of the citizen) - 1973
• El pan de las estrellas (The bread of the stars) - 1973
• La lucha continúa, pólvora del exilio (The struggle continued, powder from exile) - 1976
• Narradores chilenos del exilio (Chilean storytellers from exile) - 1978
• Neruda - 1984
• La palabra y la sangre (The word and the blood) - 1986
• El corazón escrito (The written heart) - 1986
• En el país prohibido (In the forbidden country) - 1988
• Gabriela Mistral, pública y secreta (Gabriela Mistral, public and secret) - 1991
• Huidobro, la marcha infinita (Huidobro, the infinite march) - 1993
• Los dos Borges (The two Borges) - 1996
• Un muchacho del siglo XXI (A Boy of the 20th Century) - 1997
• Notas de un concierto europeo (Notes from a European concert) - 1997
• Voy a vivirme (I am going to live my life) - 1998
• La gran guerra de Chile y otra que nunca existió (The great war of Chile and another which never existed) - 2000
• Noches de radio (Nights of radio) - 2001
• Ulises llega en locomotora (Ulysses takes a locomotive) - 2002