Nicomedes Guzmán

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Nicomedes Guzmán (June 25, 1914 in Santiago, Chile – June 26, 1964, also in Santiago), writer, editor, poet, and novelist.

Biography

The second of twelve children born to Nicomedes Vásquez Arzola and Rosa Guzmán Acevedo, his full legal name was Óscar Nicomedes Vásquez Guzmán. He decided to adopt the penname of Nicomedes, because there was already a famous writer in his group, which was the Chilean Generation of 1938 or Generación del 38 [available currently only in Spanish], Óscar Castro Zúñiga (1910–1947). Guzmán's father worked in several jobs, among which were—as Guzmán often pointed out—a streetcar motorman, a doorman, and occasionally as an ice cream peddler. Guzmán's mother as a housewife, augmented their meeger family income by caring for upper-class homes on occasion (Pearson 1976: 4-5). The author as a "proletarian novelist," wanted to emphasize the humble formation of his family, and did so especially in the dedication of his first novel, Los hombres oscuros, to his parents:

TO MY FATHER ice cream peddler [heladero ambulante]

TO MY MOTHER domestic employee [obrera doméstica]

His formal education was often interrupted by his having to work —-as a precocious laborer—- to help the large family. Thus his development in scholarly matters and learning was greatly autodictic. At age eleven he was a typesetter and bookbinder's assistant. Later he was a truck-driver's helper and an errand boy. He carried boxes in a factory and, at age sixteen, he obtained a job in a real-estate brokerage. He studied in evening classes in the Federico Hanssen Night School (Pearson 5). Later because of his success in publishing, the government gave him a position in the Department of Culture in the Homeland Ministry, where he worked together with another famous Chilean, the newspaper writer of Las Ultimas Noticias, Luis Sánchez Latorre, known widely as "Filebo."

He married at a young age Lucia Del Cármen Salazar Vidal; they had three sons and two daughters: Oscar Vásquez Salazar, Ximena Vásquez Salazar, Dario Vásquez Salazar, Florencia Adriana Vásquez Salazar, and Pablo Lautaro Vásquez Salazar. A later marriage with the psychologist and social worker, Esther Josefina Panay Pérez, brought him the joy of a son, Rodrigo Nicomedes Vásquez Panay, and a daughter, Olaya Esther Vásquez Panay. His children were well-educated and became novelists, engineers, and professors.

After an early writing experience as a poet, Guzmán was very successful with his experiment in writing a proletarian novel in the first-person singular and using the present tense. Los hombres oscuros/obscuros had great success in Chile, and led Guzmán to write a second novel based on children growing up in the slums of Santiago, Chile. This book, La sangre y la esperanza (Blood and Hope) became one of the most important novels of the time in Chile. And for many years was required reading in secondary schools in Chile. Guzmán continued writing when he had the opportunity. He edited many books, published ímportant anthologies, and helped a good number of less-fortunate writers.

Guzmán died the day after his fiftieth birthday, shocking an entire nation.

In honor of Guzmán's birthday (June 25, 1914), during much of the week of June 18 through June 25, 2014 and even later, in numerous universities and communities in all of Chile, events were carried out honoring Guzmán. Both chambers of the Congress of Chile also honored the writer on July 1, 2014. Many of these events commemorating the centennial of the author's birth can be seen on FaceBook under the heading Nicomedes Guzman 100.0

Obra

Novels and Books of Short Stories

Poetry

Anthologies

References

    External links