Braulio Arenas ( La Serena, April 4, 1913 - †

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

May 12, 1988) was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an poet and writer, founder of the

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

'' Mandrágora'' group.

Life

Braulio Arenas lived most of his youth in the north of Chile, moving in his teens to

Talca Talca () is a List of cities in Chile, city and Communes of Chile, commune in Chile located about south of Santiago, Chile, Santiago, and is the capital of both Talca Province and Maule Region (7th Region of Chile). As of the 2012 census, the ...

to study. There he encountered Teófilo Cid and Enrique Gómez Correa among others, and participated to literary activities with them. Years later, he started law studies in

, which he soon abandoned to focus on writing. Through

Eduardo Anguita Eduardo Anguita Cuéllar (Yerbas Buenas, Linares Province, Linares November 1914 - Santiago de Chile August 12, 1992) was a Chilean poet, who was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1988. Life Eduardo Anguita was raised in Sa ...

, he met

Vicente Huidobro Vicente García-Huidobro Fernández (; January 10, 1893 – January 2, 1948) was a Chilean poet born to an aristocratic family. He promoted the avant-garde literary movement in Chile and was the creator and greatest exponent of the literary m ...

, father of "

Creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

" literary movement, which disputed literary innovations with

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

and

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

. Influenced by these European currents, Arenas founded with some friends, in 1938, the Surrealist group '' Mandrágora''. This circle supported the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

government. The same year, one of his

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

, ''Gehenna'', was published in

Miguel Serrano Miguel Joaquín Diego del Carmen Serrano Fernández, known as Miguel Serrano (10 September 1917 – 28 February 2009), was a Chilean diplomat, writer, occultist, and fascist activist. A Nazi sympathiser in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he lat ...

's ''Antología del verdadero cuento en Chile''. Arenas received in 1984 the

Chilean National Prize for Literature {{Use dmy dates, date=October 2020 In Chile, the National Prize for Literature ''(Premio Nacional de Literatura)'' was created by Law No. 7,368 during the presidency of Juan Antonio Ríos on 8 November 1942. It consists of a lump-sum monetary prize ...

, winning some recognition albeit confidential editions of his works (often less than 800 exemplaries).

Works

* ''El mundo y su doble'', 1940 * ''La mujer mnemotécnica'', 1941 * ''Luz adjunta'', 1950 * ''La simple vista'', 1950 * ''En el océano de nadie'', narraciones, 1951 * ''La gran vida'', 1952 * ''El pensamiento transmitido'', 1952 * ''Discurso del gran poder'', 1952 * ''Ancud, Castro y Achao'', 1953 * ''El cerro Caracol'', narraciones, 1956 * ''Versión definitiva'', 1956 * ''El a g c de la Mandrágora'', 1957 * ''Poemas 1934-1959'', 1959 * ''Adiós a la familia'', novela, 1961 (reeditada por la

Editorial Universitaria Editorial Universitaria is Chilean university press based in Santiago. It was established in 1947 with funds from private people and from the University of Chile. During its existence, it has published the works of generations influential Chilean sc ...

en 2000 * ''La casa fantasma'', 1962 * ''Vicente Huidobro y el creacionismo'', ensayos, 1964 * ''El juego de ajedrez, o, Visiones del país de las maravillas'', 1966 * ''Pequeña meditación al atardecer en un cementerio junto al mar'', 1966 * ''El castillo de Peth'', novela, 1969 * ''La endemoniada de Santiago'', novela, 1969 * ''En el mejor de los mundos'', antología poética 1929-1969; 1970 * ''Samuel'', comedia en dos actos, 1970 * ''El laberinto de Greta'', novela, 1971 * ''Los mozos de Monleón'', narraciones, 1971 * ''La promesa en blanco'', novela, 1972 * ''Actas surrealistas'', ensayo, 1974 * ''Berenice: la idea fija'', novela, 1975 * ''Los esclavos de sus pasiones'', novela, 1975 * ''El cantar de Rolando'', ensayo, 1975 * ''El pintor Morales Jordán'', ensayo, 1975 * ''Una mansión absolutamente espejo deambula por una mansión absolutamente imagen'', 1978 * ''Los sucesos de Budi'', novela, 1980 * ''La situación física del castillo kafkiano'', 1980 * ''Escritos y escritores chilenos'', ensayos, 1982 * ''Visiones del pais de las maravillas'', 1983 * ''Los dioses del Olimpo'', leyendas, 1983 * ''La promesa en blanco'', novela, 1984 * ''Sólo un día del tiempo. Crónica del año 1929'', 1984 * ''Escritos mundanos'', 1985 * ''Memorándum chileno'', 1987 * ''Realidad desalojada'', 2009 * ''La casa fantasma y otros poemas'', 2012

References

External links

Página dedicada a Braulio Arenas

por

Ștefan Baciu Ștefan Aurel Baciu ( pt, Estêvão Baciu, es, Esteban Baciu; October 29, 1918 – January 6, 1993) was a Romanian and Brazilian poet, novelist, publicist and academic who lived his later life in Hawaii. A precocious, award-winning, young author ...

Estudio de Luis G. de Mussy: ''Mandrágora: La Raíz De La Protesta O El Refugio Inconcluso'' (2001)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arenas, Braulio Chilean male poets 1988 deaths National Prize for Literature (Chile) winners 1913 births 20th-century Chilean poets 20th-century Chilean male writers