Ramón Amaya Amador

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Ramón Amaya Amador (April 29, 1916–November 24, 1966) is Honduras's most famous author. He was born in Olanchito in the department of Yoro, and died in a plane crash in 1966 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. After working on the banana plantations along the Northern Caribbean coast of Honduras he published his first work in 1939. He became a journalist in 1941 for El Atlántico (The Atlantic), a La Ceiba newspaper. In October 1943 he founded a weekly magazine in Olanchito called Alerta (Alert). In 1944 he moved to Guatemala, fleeing political persecution. He worked there on the Nuestro Diario (Our Daily) newspaper, and was very supportive of the left-wing government of Jacobo Arbenz. In his 10 years in Guatemala he also worked for the Diario de Centro América (Central American Daily), El Popular Progresista (The Popular Progressive) and Mediodía (Midday). When Arbenz regime fell in June 1954 Amador sought refuge in the Argentine embassy before being granted asylum in that country. He worked there for Sarmiento, a popular educative newspaper. He also married the Argentinian Regina Arminda Funes. In May 1957 he returned to Honduras with her. He began working for El Cronista (The Chronicle), and found the magazine Vistazo (View) in Tegucigalpa. He left Honduras with his family, including 2 small children, to move to Prague in Czechoslovakia where he worked on a magazine called Problems of peace and socialism until he was tragically killed at 50 years of age. In September 1977 his remains were returned to Tegucigalpa, but it was not until 1991 that his books were published in Honduras.