José Eustasio Rivera

José Rivera Eustasio Salas ( born February 19, 1888 in San Mateo, today Rivera, Huila Department, † December 1, 1928 in New York) was a Colombian writer.

  • 2.1 first publications ( selection)
  • 2.2 Translation into German

Life

José Eustasio Rivera was born the fifth of eleven children in a peasant family. He first attended school in Santa Librada Neiva, since 1902, the School San Luis Gonzaga in Elías ( Department of Huila ).

Teacher, lawyer, diplomat, Congressman

From 1906 to 1909 José Eustasio Rivera was able to complete the training to become a teacher in Bogotá thanks to a scholarship at the Pedagogical University ( Escuela Normal de Institute Tutores ). After graduation he worked as a school inspector in Ibagué. In 1912 he took up studies in jurisprudence and political science at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, which he on 3 March 1917 with the degree of Dr. jur. et rer. pol. completed. His living he earned by simultaneously he worked as an employee of a ministry. After completing his doctorate, he settled as a lawyer. In 1921 he represented his country for the first time at a diplomatic mission, in Peru and in Mexico, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the independence of both countries. A second diplomatic mission led him in 1928 to La Habana (Cuba), where he represented Colombia at the International Congress on emigration and immigration.

1922 Rivera was appointed to the Legal Secretary of the Colombian- Venezuelan Boundary Commission. Reason for this was that since the dissolution of Great Colombia, the border between the two countries had been in dispute and according to a ruling of the Spanish Queen Maria Christina of Austria, the limit should now be demarcated by Swiss surveyors. From September 1922 to October 1923, the Commission, Rivera traveled at times alone, through the Llanos and the unexplored rainforest. Rivera witnessed the deplorable living conditions of the rubber tappers on the Rio Putumayo and their exploitation by the brutal feudal lords Julio César Arana. The impressions of this journey left deep traces in his novel La Voragine.

After his return to Bogotá Rivera made ​​the crime in the rainforest public, in the press as in Parliament. Because during his long journey, he was recruited as substitutes for the conservative faction in the lower house. But the Colombian government failed to take action.

1928 died José Eustasio Rivera, only 40 years old, on a trip to the U.S. to prepare for the English translation of La Voragine, probably from malaria which he had contracted through the rainforest on the trip and at the attacks he suffered ever since. His body was taken for burial in Bogotá in his home country. The ship, which sailed up the Río Magdalena the dead poet and the railway to Bogotá had stopped again and again, so that the amount of José Rivera Eustasio could say goodbye.

His hometown was renamed in 1943 in honor of the poet in Rivera.

Literary career

As a 18- year-old student of pedagogy José Eustasio Rivera began to write poems. During his law studies, several plays emerged. Of the poems of his early work is the Oda a San Mateo, Rivera had written in 1914 in honor of the freedom fighter Antonio Ricaurte, until now most frequently cited within Colombia. A first collection of 55 of his 168 sonnets appeared in 1921 under the title Tierra de promisión ( The Promised Land ).

The most important work of his narrow oeuvre is the novel La Voragine ( German: The Swirl), which he published in 1924 and which he repeatedly revised until the fifth, published in the year of his death edition. La Voragine was hailed as one of the major works of Latin American literature in the 20th century.

Works

First publications ( selection)

  • Oda a San Mateo, 1914
  • Tierra de promisión, 1921
  • La Voragine, 1924

Translations into German

  • The vortex ( in the first edition with the subtitle The Book of rubber collectors ), translated by George Hellmuth Neuendorf. expenditures: Hans Müller, Leipzig 1934
  • Stahlberg -Verlag, Karlsruhe 1946
  • Means German printing and publishing house, Hall 1948 ( = The Atlantic Books, Vol 1)
  • AWA -Verlag, Munich 1955
  • Aufbau Verlag, Berlin ( GDR ) 1972
  • Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin ( GDR ) 1977 ( = compass Library, Vol 220)
  • Rowohlt, Reinbek 1990 ( = Rowohlt century, Vol 73)
Departments of Colombia Los Llanos (South America) The Complete Works Horacio Quiroga Ibero-American Institute Name Authority File
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