Germán List Arzubide (31 May 1898 – 17 October or 19 October 1998) was a Mexican poet and

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

. Born in

Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...

, he was an active participant in the Revolution, fighting alongside Emiliano Zapata as well as extolling him and other revolutionary leaders in his poetry. He was wounded and jailed three times, the first occasion providing the inspiration for his very first poem, a mocking caricature of his jailer. He wrote biographies of both Zapata (''Exaltacion'', published in 1927) and another assassinated revolutionary leader

Francisco Madero Francisco Ignacio Madero González (; 30 October 1873 – 22 February 1913) was a Mexican businessman, revolutionary, writer and statesman, who became the 37th president of Mexico from 1911 until he was deposed in a coup d'etat in February 1 ...

(''Madero, el Mexico de 1910'', published in 1973). According to the poet James Kirkup, who wrote an obituary of List upon his death: "The literary work of List and his contemporaries, both poets and novelists (including Martin Luis Guzman and

Mariano Azuela Mariano Azuela González (January 1, 1873 – March 1, 1952) was a Mexican author and physician, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism. He is the fi ...

), create the best picture of those passionate uprisings." List Arzubide was one of the major members of

Stridentism Stridentism (Spanish: Estridentismo) was an artistic and multidisciplinary avant-garde movement, founded in Puebla City by Manuel Maples Arce at the end of 1921 but formally developed in Xalapa where all the founders moved after the University of Ve ...

and, with

Manuel Maples Arce Manuel Maples Arce (May 1, 1900 - June 26, 1981) was a Mexican poet, writer, art critic, lawyer and diplomat, especially known as the founder of the Stridentism movement. The leader of the first Mexican avant-garde movement After the first Stri ...

, redacted and gave out the second stridentist manifesto in the city of Puebla. He also wrote a comprehensive account of the movement, titled ''El movimiento estridentista'' (1926), remarkable because it is, at the same time, a history, a defence and a literary work. His other work, ''Practica de educación irreligiosa'' (1936), is listed in the

Index Librorum Prohibitorum The ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' ("List of Prohibited Books") was a list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality by the Sacred Congregation of the Index (a former Dicastery of the Roman Curia), and Catholics were forbidden ...

. In 1933, List Arzubide wrote ''Troka el Poderoso'', a children's educational radio program that aired on the station XFX. The show incorporated Stridentist themes into the narrative, which centered on a robot named Troka replacing old technology and the natural world with modern science. List Arzubide also wrote plays for the state-sponsored, politically didactic puppet show tour, Teatro Guiñol. He was a close friend of the painter Fernando Leal, who portrayed him as one of the characters of his cycle of frescoes dedicated to ''Bolivar's Epic''. In one of his last interviews he said: "I want to die smiling, as I expect to do soon, since I don't want to continue abusing life, especially when the doctors have taken all the fun away by forbidding me alcohol and women." He died in Mexico City at the age of 100, one of the last survivors of the Revolution.

References

External links

New York Times obituary

Independent obituary by James Kirkup

Estridentismo in Mexico City : dialogues between Mexican avant-garde art and literature, 1921-1924. Columbia University PhD thesis by Tatiana Flores published in 2003
1898 births 1998 deaths People from Puebla (city) Mexican male poets Mexican people of Basque descent 20th-century Mexican poets 20th-century Mexican male writers Mexican centenarians Men centenarians {{Mexico-writer-stub