Jorge Icaza Coronel
Jorge Icaza Coronel ( born June 10, 1906 in Quito, † May 26, 1978 in Quito ) was an Ecuadorian author and theater director. Benjamín Carrión In addition, he is seen by many as the most important Ecuadorian writers of the 20th century. With his novel Huasipungo and the included hard-hitting portrayal of oppression and exploitation of the Ecuadorian indigenous ( Indians ), he founded the literary indigenism in Ecuador and has been for all of Latin America to one of its most important representatives.
Life
Jorge Icaza was born as the son of an impoverished middle-class family in Quito, Ecuador's capital city, where he studied under great financial hardship at the Universidad Central and at the Conservatorio Nacional. Through long stays at the hacienda of his uncle in the Andes, he learned as a child the life of the indigenous population know. He himself, however, was white-skinned and saw itself as a cholo, a member of the mestizo population. His lifestyle in his early years was rather close to the so-called bohemian. After he dropped out of medical school and lost mother and stepfather, he was admitted as an actor in the Compañía Nacional Dramatica and also himself wrote numerous plays; However, his livelihood he earned as a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance of his country.
He married the actress Marina Moncayo, with whom he had two daughters, Cristina and Fenia Icaza Moncayo. In 1928 he wrote his first play, El Intruso ( The intruder ), which was brought up by his own troops to the performance. As a director and playwright Icaza had always problems with censorship and the opposition of the Catholic Church of his country: for example, the world premiere of his play Flagelos ( = lashes, because behind the scenes the sound of whip lashes as a symbol of the oppression of the people to was heard ) in their own country prevented and could only in 1940 at the Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires carried out under the direction of Leonidas Barletta. After his drama El dictador had to take a sharp 1933 reviews, Icaza took a turn to writing novels and made next to a bookstore, but without giving up his day job as a financial officer. With his first novel Huasipungo 1934, the author had great success: The book has been translated into numerous languages and has since been regarded as a milestone in the history of the novel as well as indigenist probably the best known work of Ecuadorian literature in general. From this time the writer was often invited to give lectures and seminars abroad. As a member of the Social Democratic Party, he advocated for the Indians; He also founded the Writers and Artists Union of his country and worked in the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana.
Icaza led for a time the Ecuadorian National Library ( 1960 ) and later held several diplomatic offices; among other things, he was cultural attaché in Buenos Aires and in the 1970s his country's ambassador to the Soviet Union ( 1973), Poland and the GDR. He died on 26 May 1978 in Quito.
Works
In his early work Icaza wrote many dramas, after 1936 he turned against it entirely to the novel and the narrative. Typical of his prose is the use of terminology from the Kichwa, so most of the texts had to be provided for Spanish-speaking readers with a glossary at the end. Content pierces the trenchant criticism of the excesses of feudal organized Latifundiensystems out and the demonstration of an incipient tendency towards globalization by foreign, especially American capital. This anti-capitalist stance and the strong didactic orientation of his novels, in which brutal abuses were described very directly, has also been emphasized by his opponents in order to provide the literary qualities of his works in question. For the novel En las calles (1935 ), the author was awarded the National Prize for Literature.
Dramatic works
Most of his plays were first performed at the Teatro Nacional Sucre in Quito.