Francisco Méndez (1907-1962) was a Guatemalan poet and short-story writer born in

Joyabaj Joyabaj () is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. It is located about 50 kilometers from Santa Cruz del Quiché, in the Sierra de Chuacús mountains. Joyabaj was an important part of the royal route to Mexico ...

El Quiché EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

. He published his first poem at the age of eighteen, and moved to the city of

Quetzaltenango Quetzaltenango (, also known by its Maya name Xelajú or Xela ) is a municipality and namesake department in western Guatemala. The city is located in a mountain valley at an elevation of above sea level at its lowest part. It may reach above ...

shortly after. A self-taught writer, he went on to publish numerous volumes of poetry, including the celebrated Nocturnos. He wrote for the

Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...

newspaper

El Imparcial ''El Imparcial'', founded in 1918, was "an anti-'' Popular'', pro-Independence tabloid" in Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of ...

from 1935 until his death, and he is linked to a generation of Guatemalan writers from the 1930s known as the Tepeus. His book of memoirs and short stories, Stories of Joyabaj, was published posthumousl

Sources

* Words Without Border

* Pagina de Literatura Guatemaltec

* Ministerio de Cultura, Guatemal

* The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape: A Descriptive Guide, by Francisco Aguilera, Library of Congress Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish Division. Washington: Library of Congress, 1974.

External links

The Water CathedralFrancisco Mendez recorded at the Library of Congress for the Hispanic Division’s audio literary archive between 1955 and 1961
20th-century Guatemalan poets 20th-century Guatemalan male writers Guatemalan male poets Guatemalan male short story writers Guatemalan short story writers 20th-century memoirists Magic realism writers 1907 births 1962 deaths People from Quiché Department 20th-century Guatemalan people 20th-century short story writers {{Guatemala-writer-stub