Eugenio Montejo (1938 in
Caracas – 5 June 2008 in
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
) was a Venezuelan poet and essay writer, founder of the literary magazine Azar and co-founder of
Revista Poesía, a poetry magazine published by the
University of Carabobo
The University of Carabobo (Spanish: ''Universidad de Carabobo'') is an autonomous, public university of Venezuela located in Valencia, Venezuela. It offers graduate and postgraduate studies in different areas. The university offers a lot of gre ...
.
He was researcher at the "
Rómulo Gallegos
Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire (2 August 1884 – 5 April 1969) was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. For a period of nine months during 1948, he governed as the first freely elected president in Venezuela's history. He was ...
" Centre for Latin American Studies in Caracas and contributed to a large number of national and international magazines. In Venezuela he was awarded the
National Prize for Literature in 1998 and in 2004 he received the International Octavio Paz Prize for Poetry and Essay.
International interest in Montejo's poetry grew after his poem "La Tierra Giró para Acercarnos" ("The Earth Turned to Bring Us Closer") was used in the film ''
21 Grams
''21 Grams'' is a 2003 American psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu from a screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga. The film stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston and Benicio Del Toro. The sec ...
'' by feted Mexican director
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu (; American Spanish: ; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker and screenwriter. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the hu ...
. A few lines from the poem are quoted by
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama ''Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008).
Penn began his acting career in televisi ...
's character in the movie.
Poetic work
*Elegos (1967)
*Muerte y memoria (1972)
*Algunas palabras (1977)
*Terredad (1978)
*Trópico absoluto (1982)
*Alfabeto del mundo (1986)
*Adiós al Siglo XX (1992, 1997 a complete version)
*Papiros amorosos (2002)
*Chamario (2003, for children)
*Fábula del escriba (2006)
Essays
*La ventana oblicua (1974)
*El taller blanco (1983)
*El cuaderno de Blas Coll (1981)
Translations
The Trees(selected poems 1967–2004) - an anthology of selected poems with English translations by the Australian poet Peter Boyle. Original Spanish text appears alongside English translation (Salt Publishing, 2004).
(Selected Works by Eugenio Montejo). An anthology of selected poems and prose pieces, translated and edited by Kirk Nesset. A bilingual book; the text in Spanish appears also. Critical introduction by Wilfredo Hernandez and Kirk Nesset (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010).
Further reading
*
Consuelo Hernández. ''La arquitectura poética de Eugenio Montejo.'' ''Venezuela. Literatura de fin de siglo''.'' Special Issue.'' INTI Revista de Literatura Hispánica. No. 37-38. Julio Ortega, editor. Brown University. 1993. pp. 133-143.
Roberts, Nicholas 2009. ''Poetry and Loss: The Work of Eugenio Montejo'' (Woodbridge: Tamesis)
(Selected Works by Eugenio Montejo). See critical introduction by Wilfredo Hernandez and Kirk Nesset (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010).
External links
A lecture by Eugenio Montejo in Literal, Latin American Voices Interview and poetry by Eugenio Montejo in Literal, Latin American Voices
{{DEFAULTSORT:Montejo, Eugenio
1938 births
2008 deaths
People from Caracas
21st-century Venezuelan poets
Deaths from stomach cancer
Deaths from cancer in Venezuela
20th-century Venezuelan poets
Venezuelan male poets
20th-century male writers
21st-century male writers