On April 8, 1948, Álvaro Mutis published his first book of poems, The balance, in collaboration with his great writer friend Carlos Patiño Roselli.
To his surprise, the next day his copies were out of stock, but not precisely because they had been sold. Colombia woke up on April 9 of that same year with the news of the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Enraged, the people of Bogotá burned down the center of the capital and many of the bookstores where Mutis’s poems were kept were left in ashes.
“‘My poetic debut was a complete success, the first edition was sold out,’ said the writer, teasing that first literary attempt,” recalls the poet Federico Díaz-Granados, who had the good fortune to meet him in 2009 in Mexico City. , specifically in Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl, where Mutis was the president.
“Thanks to the Álvaro Mutis scholarship, I arrived at the Álvaro Mutis shelter and being there allowed me to meet him several times, to have the chance to talk with him, although I had read his letters since I was a child,” says Díaz-Granados.
Next August 25 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Mutis, considered one of the milestones of Spanish-language literature of this century and a decisive man in Colombian culture.
New ways
That April 9, 1948 not only meant a crack in the history of Colombia, it was also the poetic birth, new paths were opened in Colombian poetry, because Álvaro Mutis manages to synthesize the Latin American expression through his writings.
“Those walks on the Coello farm (Tolima) allowed him to capture those sensations and smells of the tropics, of the hot land, which was so important in the work of Mutis, both in his poetry and in his narrative. In addition, his ethical accent, his lyric very attached to an old rhetoric, makes the poet acclaimed, fostered by the great teacher Jorge Zalamea, who translated the poetry from French Saint-John Perse, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960. All this knowledge They made a very personal and very original record in Mutis that we see in two of his first poems: The elements of the disaster y lost jobsdescribes Federico Díaz-Granados.
Without a doubt, Mutis is an outstanding author due to the verbal richness of his production and a characteristic combination of lyric and narrative, as Federico assures.
Influenced by Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Saint-John Perse himself and Walt Whitman, he used poetry as a way of learning to access unknown universes, new worlds where love and a good death were possible. His another self It was Maqroll, a gloomy yet innocent adventurer who sings of the fragile human condition. His work has been recognized with such prestigious awards as the Príncipe de Asturias (1997) and the Cervantes Prize (2001).
“He was a very generous man; with his wisdom, his knowledge, his readings, with his readers, but, above all, with his friends. That attitude landed him in jail in Mexico, because for him friendship was the absolute truth of him, a unique universe. A writer who spoke about Colombia, the Tropics and gave us an identity in front of our landscapes. That is why we remember him and celebrate this centenary, because he is an author who gave us a voice, ”Díaz-Granados highlighted.
more than a writer
Beyond fame and glory, he was the great friend of a generation of important authors, filmmakers, and painters, as well as standing out as a generous and unique man who influenced a generation of Latin American writers.
He was married twice, the first was to Mireya Durán and as a result of that relationship three children were born. The second time he married was with María Luz Montané, a relationship in which he had one more daughter.
He was a close friend of Gabriel García Márquez. He met him in 1950; Not only were they contemporaries, only four years apart, but they shared unforgettable moments in Bogotá and Mexico that forged their friendship over the years, turning it into a very solid relationship. Mutis gave Gabo one of the first typewriters and it was he who introduced him to the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo.
There were multiple trades that Mutis exercised throughout his life. He was a translator, a teacher, an airline manager, a prison theater director, a travel agent, a political and business adviser, an advertising company director, and a presenter on Colombia’s National Radio. His voice was used for different North American productions; the most remembered of all is the black and white series of 1959 The Untouchables.
Some of his writings were made into movies, such as Today I met Bolívardirected by Francisco Norden; The Araucaima mansionof Charles Mayolo, e Ilona arrives with the rainby Sergio Cabrera.
In 2001 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize for his contribution to Spanish-language literature and two years later received the Legion of Honor as an officer, the highest distinction awarded by the French government.
Tribute
As a way of paying tribute to Álvaro Mutis on his centenary, the Cultural Center of the Bank of the Republic in Ibagué will hold the seminar “100 Years of Mutis”, an event that will take place in the auditorium of the Darío Echandía Library. The speakers who will be in charge of motivating reflections on the work and life of Mutis are: the Colombian poet, journalist and cultural manager Federico Díaz-Granados; the poet and essayist Juan Felipe Robledo and the teacher and researcher Mario Barrero Fajardo.
The seminar will have the following agenda:
Friday August 25
Lecture “A journey through the work of Álvaro Mutis”. 2:30 p.m
Guidance: Federico Díaz-Granados, who stands out for being a Colombian poet, journalist, cultural manager. In addition, he has been a recognized anthologist of the new poetic voices of the country. His poetry, reviews and essays by him appear in various national and foreign magazines and publications. Some of his works are: Passage lodging (2003, 2004), the wide garden (colombo-uruguayan youth poetry anthology, 2005) y goodbye album (2006). He is also the author of the anthology One hundred years of Spanish-American poetry.
Lecture: “The imprint of Spain in the work of Álvaro Mutis”. 3:30 pm
Guidance: Juan Felipe Robledo, Colombian poet and essayist. Professional in literary studies, magister and doctor in Spanish and Latin American literature and theater in the European context, researcher and teacher at the Universidad Pontificia Javeriana. Winner of important prizes such as the international poetry Jaime Sabines and the Ministry of Culture.
Conference: “Return to the hot land of Álvaro Mutis”. 4:30 pm
Guide: Mario Barrero Fajardo. He graduated from the Philosophy and Letters program at the Universidad de los Andes, with a PhD in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of Salamanca. Professor and researcher at the Universidad de los Andes.