Adalberto Ortiz

(1914-2003)

Novelist, poet and diplomat born in Esmeraldas, a province of The Republic of Ecuador is a country in northwestern South America, bounded by Colombia on the north, by Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean on the west. The country also includes the Galápagos Islands (Colón Archipelago) in the Pacific, about 965 km (about... Ecuador.

Among his most important literary works we find his novel "Juyungo", his poetry collection "Earth, Sound and Drum", and the short story collection called "Entundada"; His most defining feature as a writer was the incorporation of the elements of afro-american culture, enriching his literary vocabulary with its jargon, its elasticity and its rythm.

Ortiz's thematic focused around the identity of the afro-american within latin-american society and its struggle towards social freedom, against opression and secular exploitation. His body of work also preserves and rescues the elements of the psychology, idiosyncracy, customs and slang of the afro-american culture.

Facing the subject of the difference between classes, Ortiz used his characters to personalize and flesh out these political themes into very human and realistic stories. A specific point he touches in the novel "Juyungo", for example, is the relationship of the Black and Mestizo races (personified by Lastre's descendant and the Mestizo Diaz).

Outside of the aspects of social commentary, Ortiz's prose is celebrated and acclaimed as posessing singular beauty and elegance, as the following extract from "Earth, Sound and Drum" shows us:

Vestida de verde va
una joven de azabache
del ébano el corazón
es la fibra de su carne
con movimientos de mar
y temblores de cascabel
su linda risa es de cal
de caña brava su talle
y tersura hay en su piel
como en la flor de la tarde
quien en la calle la vio
de ella no puedo olvidarse
¿para quién ella será?
ella mismo no lo sabe
¿será de un blanco, tal vez?
quien sabe negra, quien sabe
¡de un negro serías mejor!
vestida de verde cade.

In 1995 the Ecuadorian Government awarded him with the "Eugenio Espejo" National Prize celebrating the entirety of his work.

Published Works

Novel: Juyungo (Buenos Aires, 1943)
El espejo y la ventana -National Award of the Journalist Union (Quito, 1967)
La envoltura del sueño (Guayaquil, 1982)
Story: Los contrabandistas (México, 1945)
La mala espalda (Quito, 1952)
La entundada (Quito, 1971)
Poetry: Tierra son y tambor (México, 1945)
Camino y puerto de la angustia (México, 1945)
El vigilante insepulto (Quito, 1954)
El animal herido -antología- (Quito, 1959)
Fórmulas. Tierra Son y Tambor (Quito, 1973)
La niebla encendida (Quito, 1983)
Theater: El retrato de la otra (Quito, 1970)
Consta en las antologías: El nuevo relato ecuatoriano (Quito, 1951)
Antología del cuento hispanoamericano contemporáneo (Quito, 1958)
Antología del relato ecuatoriano (Quito, 1973)
Cuento de la generación de los 30 (Guayaquil)
Antología del cuento ecuatoriano (Lima, 1974)
Cuentos hispanoamericanos, Ecuador (Quito, 1992)
Cuento contigo (Quito, 1993)
Antología básica del cuento ecuatoriano (Quito, 2001).

Bibliography

Smith, Ronna (1947-). "Prosa de Ortiz: bibliografía." Cultura 6:16 (mayo/ago. 1983): 197-210.

Links

[Monsters and the Monstruous, the second session analyses "La Tunda" by Ortiz (http://http://www.wickedness.net/Monsters/M2/s2.htm)]

["Los Ojos Y La Fea", a PDF ebook of one of Ortiz's short stories (http://www.edufuturo.com/educacion.php?c=2241)]