Miguel Otero Silva
Encyclopedia
Miguel Otero Silva was a Venezuela
n writer, journalist, humorist and politician
. Remaining a figure of great reference in Venezuelan literature
, his literary and journalistic works were strictly related to the social and political history of Venezuela
.
at very young age, to study in the Liceo Caracas. He applied to the Universidad Central de Venezuela
for studies in civil engineering
. During this time, takes place his early literary activity, writing for magazines and newspapers, such as Élite
and Fantoches, and other university
publications, besides incursing in journalism
. During the Student’s Week of the year 1928, Otero Silva formed part of a series of protest
s against the rule of then-president Juan Vicente Gómez
(see Generation of 1928
); in addition to this, he also became involved in a military plot
to overthrow the government. Due to this, Otero Silva was forced to get into exile
, in Curaçao
. There, along with Gustavo Machado
, Rafael Urbina López and other Venezuelan expatriates, began preparing an invasion of the mainland across Falcón State, an operation that was unsuccessfully carried out in June 1929. During this time, Otero Silva worked on his first novel, Fiebre (Fever
), later published in 1939.
By 1930 he had become affiliated to the Comintern
, having plenty of interest for Marxist thinking. He was able to return to Venezuela
at the death of Gómez in 1935. Taking advantage of the freedom of speech
allowed by Gómez’s successor in office, Eleazar López Contreras
, Otero Silva began writing humorous poetry in newspapers, with certain political content. Tagged soon as a communist, the government expelled him once again from the country in 1937. In these years, he went on traveling through Mexico
, United States
and Colombia
. Otero was permitted to return after three years of exile. Then, in 1941, he co-founded the humoristic weekly newspaper El Morrocoy Azul (The Blue Tortoise), along with Francisco José Delgado and Claudio Cedeño, besides a leftist weekly, Aquí Está (Here It Is).
With the founding of the newspaper El Nacional
by Henrique Otero Vizcarrondo (his father), Otero Silva is appointed as the head of writing, coinciding with his decision for applying at the Universidad Central de Venezuela
, to study journalism
. In 1946, he married María Teresa Castillo, a fellow journalist, and graduated from university in 1949. Two years later, Otero left the Communist Party of Venezuela
, claiming that he wasn't ready for political discipline, and to dedicate himself to writing. He spent a year in Guárico
, investigating the history of the village of Ortiz, since its growth to its abandonment due to a malaria breakout. The city served as inspiration for his next novel, Casas Muertas, which was published in 1955. The novel was awarded with the Premio Nacional de Literatura
, and the Premio de Novela Arístides Rojas that same year.
His newspaper, El Nacional, was suspended twice during the military rule of Marcos Pérez Jiménez
. Towards the end of the dictatorship, he was arrested for editing and publishing the Manifiesto de los Intelectuales (Intellectuals Manifesto), a text attacking the Pérez Jiménez administration. When it was overthrown in 1958, Otero is awarded with the National Prize of Journalism, and also elected as senator for the Congress, representing Aragua
. However, the newspaper was again object of much pressure by the new government of Rómulo Betancourt
, for the leftist ideas of Otero and its suspected support of communism. The discontent of the government was the cause for Otero to resign from the newspaper's body of writing.
His works from the period include Oficina N° 1, in 1961, and La Muerte de Honorio in 1963, along with Las Celestiales in 1965, a book of couplet
s with humouristic references to politics, ideologies, and religion, which he signed as "Iñaki de Errandonea", a fictional jesuit priest invented by Otero himself.
In 1967, he was made a full member of the Academia Venezolana de la Lengua
. As a senator, he promoted the creation of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes in the 1970s, and participated in the founding of the Galería de Arte Nacional. In 1979, Otero was awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize
.
In 1985, soon after publishing La Piedra que era Cristo, Otero died in Caracas
on August 28.
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
n writer, journalist, humorist and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. Remaining a figure of great reference in Venezuelan literature
Venezuelan literature
Venezuelan literature can be traced to pre-Hispanic times with the myths and oral literature that formed the cosmogonic view of the world that indigenous people had. Some of these stories are still known in Venezuela. Like many Latin American countries, the Spanish conquerors have had the greatest...
, his literary and journalistic works were strictly related to the social and political history of Venezuela
History of Venezuela
This article discusses the history of Venezuela. See also the history of South America.-Pre-Columbian period:Archeologists have discovered evidence of the earliest known inhabitants of the Venezuelan area in the form of leaf-shaped flake tools, together with chopping and plano–convex scraping...
.
Life
Born in Barcelona, Anzoátegui State, moved to CaracasCaracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
at very young age, to study in the Liceo Caracas. He applied to the Universidad Central de Venezuela
Central University of Venezuela
The Central University of Venezuela is a premier public University of Venezuela located in Caracas...
for studies in civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
. During this time, takes place his early literary activity, writing for magazines and newspapers, such as Élite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
and Fantoches, and other university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
publications, besides incursing in journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
. During the Student’s Week of the year 1928, Otero Silva formed part of a series of protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
s against the rule of then-president Juan Vicente Gómez
Juan Vicente Gómez
Juan Vicente Gómez Chacón was a military general and de facto ruler of Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935. He was president on three occasions during this time, and ruled as an unelected military strongman for the rest of the era.-Early years:Gómez was a barely literate cattle herder and...
(see Generation of 1928
Generation of 1928
The Generation of 1928 was a group of Venezuelan students who led protests in Caracas in 1928 against the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez. Many politicians prominent in Venezuela's transition to democracy took part in the protests...
); in addition to this, he also became involved in a military plot
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
to overthrow the government. Due to this, Otero Silva was forced to get into exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
, in Curaçao
Curaçao
Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao , which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands...
. There, along with Gustavo Machado
Gustavo Machado
Gustavo "Ximu" Machado is a Brazilian professional mixed martial artist who has competed for the International Fight League, Shooto, DEEP, RINGS, Pancrase, and King of the Cage promotions. Machado has fought top UFC fighters Thales Leites, Brad Blackburn, Demian Maia, and Nate Quarry...
, Rafael Urbina López and other Venezuelan expatriates, began preparing an invasion of the mainland across Falcón State, an operation that was unsuccessfully carried out in June 1929. During this time, Otero Silva worked on his first novel, Fiebre (Fever
Fever (novel)
Fever is a 1982 novel by Robin Cook and is in the category of medical thriller. The main characters are a 12 year old girl, Michelle, with myeoloblastic leukaemia, and her father, Charles. She goes to a hospital where her doctors decide to give her experimental high doses of chemotherapy. This...
), later published in 1939.
By 1930 he had become affiliated to the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, having plenty of interest for Marxist thinking. He was able to return to Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
at the death of Gómez in 1935. Taking advantage of the freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
allowed by Gómez’s successor in office, Eleazar López Contreras
Eleazar López Contreras
José Eleazar López Contreras was President of Venezuela . López was a general and one of Juan Vicente Gómez's collaborators.Eleazar López was the only child of Col. Manuel Maria López and Catalina Contreras...
, Otero Silva began writing humorous poetry in newspapers, with certain political content. Tagged soon as a communist, the government expelled him once again from the country in 1937. In these years, he went on traveling through Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
. Otero was permitted to return after three years of exile. Then, in 1941, he co-founded the humoristic weekly newspaper El Morrocoy Azul (The Blue Tortoise), along with Francisco José Delgado and Claudio Cedeño, besides a leftist weekly, Aquí Está (Here It Is).
With the founding of the newspaper El Nacional
El Nacional
El Nacional is a Venezuelan publishing company under the name C.A. Editorial El Nacional, most widely known for its El Nacional newspaper. It, along with Últimas Noticias and El Universal, are the most widely read and circulated daily national newspapers in the country, and it has an average of...
by Henrique Otero Vizcarrondo (his father), Otero Silva is appointed as the head of writing, coinciding with his decision for applying at the Universidad Central de Venezuela
Central University of Venezuela
The Central University of Venezuela is a premier public University of Venezuela located in Caracas...
, to study journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
. In 1946, he married María Teresa Castillo, a fellow journalist, and graduated from university in 1949. Two years later, Otero left the Communist Party of Venezuela
Communist Party of Venezuela
The Communist Party of Venezuela is a Marxist-Leninist political party, and the oldest continuously existing party in Venezuela...
, claiming that he wasn't ready for political discipline, and to dedicate himself to writing. He spent a year in Guárico
Guárico
Guárico State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is San Juan de Los Morros. Guárico State covers a total surface area of 64 986 km² and, in 2007, had an estimated population of 745,100.-Municipalities and municipal seats:...
, investigating the history of the village of Ortiz, since its growth to its abandonment due to a malaria breakout. The city served as inspiration for his next novel, Casas Muertas, which was published in 1955. The novel was awarded with the Premio Nacional de Literatura
National Prize for Literature (Venezuela)
The National Prize for Literature is a literary award made annually to Venezuelan writers.* 1948 Mario Briceño Iragorry...
, and the Premio de Novela Arístides Rojas that same year.
His newspaper, El Nacional, was suspended twice during the military rule of Marcos Pérez Jiménez
Marcos Pérez Jiménez
Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez was a soldier and Presidents of Venezuela from 1952 to 1958.-Career:Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez was born in Michelena, Táchira State. His father, Juan Pérez Bustamante, was a farmer; his mother, Adela Jiménez, a schoolteacher...
. Towards the end of the dictatorship, he was arrested for editing and publishing the Manifiesto de los Intelectuales (Intellectuals Manifesto), a text attacking the Pérez Jiménez administration. When it was overthrown in 1958, Otero is awarded with the National Prize of Journalism, and also elected as senator for the Congress, representing Aragua
Aragua (state)
Aragua State is located in the north-central region of Venezuela. It has plains and jungles and Caribbean beaches. The most popular are Cata and Choroni...
. However, the newspaper was again object of much pressure by the new government of Rómulo Betancourt
Rómulo Betancourt
Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello , known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was President of Venezuela from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Accion Democratica, Venezuela's dominant political party in the 20th century...
, for the leftist ideas of Otero and its suspected support of communism. The discontent of the government was the cause for Otero to resign from the newspaper's body of writing.
His works from the period include Oficina N° 1, in 1961, and La Muerte de Honorio in 1963, along with Las Celestiales in 1965, a book of couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
s with humouristic references to politics, ideologies, and religion, which he signed as "Iñaki de Errandonea", a fictional jesuit priest invented by Otero himself.
In 1967, he was made a full member of the Academia Venezolana de la Lengua
Academia Venezolana de la Lengua
The Academia Venezolana de la Lengua is an association of academics and experts on Venezuelan Spanish, the variant of the Spanish language in Venezuela. It was founded in Caracas on July 26, 1883. It is a member of the Association of Spanish Language Academies....
. As a senator, he promoted the creation of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes in the 1970s, and participated in the founding of the Galería de Arte Nacional. In 1979, Otero was awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize
Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among peoples"...
.
In 1985, soon after publishing La Piedra que era Cristo, Otero died in Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
on August 28.
Novels
- Fiebre (Fever, 1939)
- Casas Muertas (Dead Houses, 1955)
- Oficina N° 1 (Office N° 1, 1961)
- La Muerte de Honorio (The Death of Honorio, 1963)
- Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro (When I want to cry, I don't, 1970)
- Lope de Aguirre, Príncipe de la Libertad (Lope de Aguirre, Prince of Freedom, 1979)
- La Piedra que era Cristo (The Stone that was Christ, 1985)
Poetry
- Agua y Cauce (Water and Ditch, 1937)
- 25 poemas (25 poems, 1942)
- Elegía coral a Andrés Eloy Blanco (Coral Elegy to Andrés Eloy Blanco, 1958)
- La Mar que es el Morir (1965)
- Las Celestiales (The Celestials, 1965)
- Umbral (1966)
Trivia
- In the first five novels by Otero, the number of words compreending the title are the same as the number of order in which they are published. Id est, Fiebre, the first novel by Otero, has only one word; the second, Casas Muertas, has two; and so until Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro, the fifth novel with a five-word title. After this, the pattern is not followed anymore. This may seem as an intentional detail by Otero.
- In 2006 Argenis Martínez made a biographical book about the life of Miguel Otero Silva, for the Biblioteca Biográfica Venezolana, with the seal of El NacionalEl NacionalEl Nacional is a Venezuelan publishing company under the name C.A. Editorial El Nacional, most widely known for its El Nacional newspaper. It, along with Últimas Noticias and El Universal, are the most widely read and circulated daily national newspapers in the country, and it has an average of...
, (the cover of this book is the principal photo of this article).