Sophocletus

Luis Felipe Angell de Lama (Paita, April 12, 1926 - Lima, March 18, 2004), better known by his pseudonym Sophocletus, was a Peruvian writer, journalist, sports commentator, politician, cartoonist and poet. The vast majority of his writings were signed with the pseudonym.

Childhood and adolescence

Luis Felipe lived in Paita for the first four years of his life and then moved at the age of 9 to the city of Huacho, where his father was appointed Sub-prefect; He studied for three years at the Colegio San José Maristas Huacho and then moved to Lima with his family. From a very young age, he knew how to read perfectly, and thanks to his fondness for reading - his lifelong obsession - he inherited two large libraries from his great-uncles at the age of 8 and 11. he. Both libraries had close to 25,000 books, "an amount that at that time was not even available to the National Library of Peru" (quote from Sophocletus).

Sophocletus wrote his first verses at the age of 7. His inspirations as a child "are hermetically guarded" and according to him, they would be his first & # 34; sinlogismos & # 34;. A year later he erased his first tenths and at nine his first sonnet, which later added up to more than 12,000.

The adolescent and restless Luis Felipe studied in various schools in Lima. From the Marist brothers he went to La Merced, from La Inmaculada to San Agustín and finally to the San Andrés College, known in those years as Anglo-Peruvian.

Sophocletus explains these student jumps because of the very personal idea he had about school discipline and especially because he was a promoter of the self-determination of children with regard to teaching. Therefore, at the age of 12, he contracted a variant –

His college life was a mimicry of school age. He went from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima to the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, then to Coimbra, then to the Sorbonne in Paris and in this coming and going, languages accumulated in his brain and he read and spoke in English., in Portuguese, French and Italian. He also knew some Latin and Russian.

Writings in the press

He entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru on March 25, 1947, the Peruvian Diplomatic Service on January 1, 1951 and requested his retirement on October 31, 1967, to dedicate himself fully to his vocation as a writer, journalist, sports and political commentator, humorist, and poet. He died in Lima on March 18, 2004, being buried in the Los Sauces Sector of the Jardines de la Paz Cemetery Park in the district of La Molina.

Sofocleto has written in countless Peruvian and international publications. He started in the Sunday section of the newspaper "El Comercio" and over the years he wrote successively in the Peruvian newspapers "Correo", "Ojo", "Expreso", "The Republic", "The Morning" and in "Selections" Readers Digest, in all its languages.

As an example, in the second half of the 70s and during the military government, Sofocleto started or restarted the publication of "Sofocleto in two columns" in the Express newspaper. In his first article, he explained that it was very natural for him to write for Expreso, since he himself was a former prisoner, referring to the detention and deportation he was subjected to during the first phase of the military government (1968-1975).

"Don Sofo"

At the end of the 1970s, he founded the humorous two-page journal called "Don Sofo" of which he was the only writer, and whose burlesque and sharp editorial was called & # 34; Peditorial & # 34;. In his classic mocking style and full of humor and wit, he also uncovered the irregularities of the governments and the characters on duty. Even the blameless characters feared him because once he placed a mocking nickname, everyone stopped calling him by his name, to use his nickname. This disappeared newspaper circulated for several years, but the nicknames continue in the collective memory. He married Graciela Bessombes, and had 2 children Allan and Kareen, in his first marriage he had 3 children, Luis Felipe, Jorge and Felipe. At the end of his life he had 5 children, unfortunately he never got to know his grandchildren, Ricardo and Alessa (on Kareen's side) and Ian and Alec (on Allan's side).

Newspaper n#34;El Comercio N#34;

In the newspaper El Comercio de Lima, he began writing his “Sofocleto en dos Columnas”, as a result of the South American Soccer Championship that was played in Lima in 1956, and as a necessity of that newspaper to counteract the readership of the now-defunct newspaper "La Prensa", which had hired the Argentine Borocotó as a commentator, considered the best sports journalist in the world. Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias of "El Comercio" said of him:

"The announcement of La Prensa was badly received in El Comercio... My cousin Alejandro, the most annoyed of all, said that we should do something to counteract the effect produced by La Prensa and suddenly, Clodoaldo López Merino, who was editor-in-chief of the morning edition, made an unexpected proposal: “And why don’t we hire Sofocleto to kick the championship?” Alejandro thought it was a very good idea and within a few days the tournament began and Don Sofo commented on the initial match that was played between Argentina and another country (I don't remember which). His comment was so frightening that, the next day, Sofocleto ascended to the highest peaks of the literary prestige. Poor Borocotó step unnoticed and La Prensa stayed with the crespos made.
The literary production of Luis Felipe Angell De Lama is a hundred times more copious than the production of the Spanish Golden Age. He has written “many times more than Félix Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Quevedo, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and all his contemporaries.”

His extensive literary work

• More than 12 thousand sonnets (called "Sofonetos")
• 2,538 tenths.
• 50 thousand synlogisms.
• When he died, he was reprinting 27 volumes of the 162 volumes including:
  • San Camilo
  • Manual of the Perfect Deportation.
  • The Promised Land.
  • Towards a Universal Cat Philosophy.
  • Crazy Dictionary.
  • Matrimonial Virus
  • Top sheet.
  • The Lower sheet.
  • The Cojudos
  • Universal Trilogy of Humor.
  • Dominical suffocation, etc.
  • Dictionary of Synonyms
  • Chinese Dictionary
  • Manual of Urbanity and Good Costumes
  • Dictionary of Celebrities
  • Synlogisms
  • New Synlogisms
  • The Acute Angle
  • The Straight Angle
  • The Obtuso Angle
  • Code of Honor of the Marquis de Cabriñana
  • E Nego Péde
  • The Flasian Chinese
  • Dictionary of Neologismos
  • The Plugs
  • Suffocation in Two Columns
  • Tenth
  • De Nácares y Venas
  • Al Pie de la Letra

Tribute

The last time he visited his homeland was in June 2000, to receive the homage jointly prepared for him by the National Institute of Culture of Peru, the Federated Center of Journalists of Paita and the Provincial Municipality of Paita. And it is that Luis Felipe Angell de Lama, creator of the famous synlogisms, was born in Paita, on Calle los Hermanos Cárcamo, a house that still resists the ravages of time and that currently appears with the number 423, next to the old temple of the Virgin of Mercedes.

Deportations and imprisonment

Luis Felipe Angell De Lama, as a corollary of his long journey through the world of literature and politics, suffered four deportations and a total of three and a half years in prison ordered by military governments.

His library was razed seven times by the authorities of various dictatorial governments, due to his sharp criticism, mockery, and the creation of unforgettable nicknames for the political figures on duty, as well as for his identification and his style, in those years, with the beginning of the Cuban revolution.

Readers

His writings were constantly commented upon by his avid and delighted readers who had the great fortune to be contemporaries of such a lucid and prolific creator, who gave Peru and the world his fine humor. His readers are eternally grateful for his ingenious art, and for the healthy laughter that his writings aroused and still do.

Humorous Style

Here are some very brief excerpts from the "Crazy Dictionary" and of the "Sinlogismos" from Sophocletus:

• Arpia: mother-in-law who plays harp
• Prosaico: mosaic without polishing
• Antilope: enemy of Lope de Vega
• Blood: patron of the pastry
• Allies: crazy in line
• Budín: younger son of Buddha
• Absurd: logic
• Dude: branch of self
• Piano: completely piano
• Unbelievable: child who is not allowed to sleep
• Don Juan: Lady's toilet
• Horca: string instrument
• Barbarie: when men only killed each other in one
• Adultery: send a guy to the very horn
• Charity: tip of remorse
• Kangaroo: the animal that the bag or life gives the same
• All political mothers are in opposition
• Speaking of politics, women belong to the talking party
• Love comes as champagne and goes like wine
• The Moon is a white celestial body
• The washing verb is not conjugated, rinse
• The one who works as a bucket is an idiot.
• Eva was the first woman to live at the expense of man
• Slander is a truth spoken by our enemies
• Nothing goes as expensive as a free enemy
• There are people who think like one, but there are others who think like two
• Watch the coffee! It may be loaded
• Don't talk about the cemetery. It's a common place.
• What does X do in our alphabet? It's an unknown!
• It's not that the Argentines dance tango. They don't know where to take the couple.
• I never go up to a scale because I know it's going to hurt me.
• The slap is a unilateral applause
• Pregnancy is the conception that confirms the rule