Miguel Otero Silva

Miguel Otero Silva (Barcelona, Venezuela, October 26, 1908-Caracas, August 28, 1985) was a Venezuelan writer, humorist, journalist, engineer, and politician.

Biography

Family and youth

He was born on October 26, 1908 in the state of Anzoátegui in Venezuela. His father was Henrique Otero Vizcarrondo. His mother, Mercedes Silva Pérez, died when Miguel Otero Silva was still little.

He studied high school at the San José de Los Teques high school and later, at the Caracas high school, directed by Rómulo Gallegos; At this institute, he was a classmate of young people like Rafael Vegas, Isaac J. Pardo, Rómulo Betancourt, Jóvito Villalba and others who would make up the so-called Generation of 1928. He finished high school in 1924. He studied civil engineering at the Central University of Venezuela, but He did not attend to receive the respective title.

He read the Bible as a child despite not belonging to a definite cult. Through literature and journalism, he recounted numerous pages of the Venezuelan history of the 20th century.

Political life

He was part of the Generation of '28 that insurged against the dictatorship of General Juan Vicente Gómez. He was an art critic and a passionate baseball fan. He possessed a talent for humorous writing.

In exile in Curaçao, on June 8, 1929, he was part of a contingent of 39 men under the command of Rafael Simón Urbina who assaulted Fort Amsterdam in Willemstad and captured the Dutch governor Leonard Albert Fruytier. Subsequently, the insurgents (among them Gustavo Machado, José Tomás Jiménez and Guillermo Prince Lara) took the American steamer "Maracaibo", taking Governor Fruytier hostage and invaded Venezuela through La Vela de Coro with the intention of overthrowing the dictator Gómez. The government troops, commanded by General León Jurado, president of the Falcón state, made the attempt fail on June 13, 1929. Given the failure of the expedition and seeing how the vast majority of their supporters died or were taken prisoner, they took refuge in the Falconian mountain range. Finally, Otero Silva fled on foot to Colombia in the company of Machado and Urbina.

On August 8, 1937, he was one of the 17 delegates who participated in the First National Conference of the Communist Party of Venezuela. Although it has been reported that during the Spanish Civil War, he was part of the International Brigades on the Republican side, there is no further evidence in this regard. In 1942, recently returned from exile, he founded the left-wing weekly Aquí está, when the Venezuelan political climate was liberalized under the government of General Isaías Medina Angarita. Aquí está replaced the previous organ of the Communist Party, El hammer, which had It was relaunched in 1938. Aquí está was marked by a 'browderist' editorial line. Together with his father, he founded the newspaper El Nacional, which entered circulation on August 3 1943. After turning 40, he married journalist and activist María Teresa Castillo, one of the most important figures in Venezuelan culture, with whom he had two children.

In 1979 he received the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union, a Soviet award equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Death

He died in Caracas on August 28, 1985. At his death he left behind a broad literary legacy that ranges from plays to poems, a legacy that has earned the admiration of such well-known authors as Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez.

Works

Novel

• Fiber (1939)
• Houses Dead (1955)
• Office No. 1 (1961)
• The Death of Honorius (1963)
• When I want to cry I don't cry (1970)
• Lope de Aguirre, prince of liberty (1979)
• The stone that was Christ (1985)

Poetry

• Water and channel: revolutionary poems (1937)
• 25 poems (1942)
• Elegía coral a Andrés Eloy Blanco (1959)
• The Sea that is the Morir (1965)
• The Celestials (1965)
• Umbral (1966)

Other

• Mexico and the Mexican Revolution: a Venezuelan writer in the Soviet Union (1966)
• Florence: city of man (1974)
• Eight words (1974)
• Complete humorous work (1977)
• Complete prose: opinions on art and politics (1977)
• A morrocoy in hell: humor... humor... humor (1982)
• Journalistic writings (1998)