Víctor Montoya (born 1958) is a

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

n writer, cultural journalist, and pedagogue. Imprisoned by the dictatorship in his native Bolivia, he became an exile following a campaign by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

in 1977.

Biography

Born in

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities ...

on June 21, 1958. From early childhood he lived in the mining towns of Siglo XX and Llallagua, in northern

Potosí Potosí, known as Villa Imperial de Potosí in the colonial period, is the capital city and a municipality of the Department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world at a nominal . For centuries, it was the location o ...

department. There, the miserable conditions of the miners led him to identify with and join their efforts to change those conditions. At the age of 9 he witnessed the Massacre of San Juan. In 1976, as a result of his political activities, he was persecuted, tortured, and jailed by the military dictatorship of

Hugo Banzer Suárez Hugo Banzer Suárez (; 10 May 1926 – 5 May 2002) was a Bolivian politician and military officer who served as the 51st president of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from 1971 to 1978 in a military dictatorship; and then a ...

. While imprisoned in the

San Pedro Prison San Pedro prison or El penal de San Pedro (Saint Peter's Prison) is the largest prison in La Paz, Bolivia and is renowned for being a society within itself. Significantly different from most correctional facilities, inmates at San Pedro have job ...

and in the top-security jail of Chonchocoro-Viacha, he wrote his first published book, the eyewitness account ''Strike and Repression.'' Freed from prison through a campaign of

, he arrived in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

as an exile in 1977. He graduated from the Stockholm Institute of Education, in whose Pedagogic Institute he took specialized courses. He taught classes on the Quechua language, coordinated cultural projects in a library, led literature workshops, and worked as a teacher for several years. He was director of the literary magazines '' PuertAbierta'' and ''

Contraluz ''Backlight'' (Portuguese: ''Contraluz'') is a 2010 Portuguese–American mystery and action drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on r ...

''. His work won him awards and literary scholarships. His stories have been translated and published in international anthologies. Currently, he writes for publications in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. He is caretaker of the digital anthology of Latin American Storytellers in Sweden.

Bibliography

* Huelga y represión trike and Repression(1979) * Días y noches de angustia ays and Nights of Anguish(1982) * Cuentos Violentos 'Violent_Stories''.html" ;"title="Violent_Stories.html" ;"title="'Violent Stories">'Violent Stories''">Violent_Stories.html" ;"title="'Violent Stories">'Violent Stories''(1991) * El laberinto del pecado [The Labyrinth of Sin] (1993) * El eco de la conciencia [The Echo of Conscience] (1994) * Antología del cuento latinoamericano en Suecia [Anthology of the Latin American Short Story in Sweden] (1995) * Palabra encendida ord on Fire(1996) * El niño en el cuento boliviano he Child in the Bolivian Short Story(1999) * Cuentos de la mina tories from the Mine(2000) * Entre tumbas y pesadillas etween Tombs and Nightmares(2002) * Fugas y socavones scapes and Underground Tunnels(2002) * Literatura infantil: Lenguaje y fantasía hildren’s Literature: Language and Fantasy(2003) * Poesía boliviana en Suecia olivian Poetry in Sweden(2005) * Retratos ortraits(2006) * Cuentos en el exilio tories in Exile(2008) * Conversaciones con el Tío de Potosí onversations with the Tio of Potosi(2013)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montoya, Victor Bolivian activists Bolivian prisoners and detainees Bolivian torture victims Bolivian male writers Bolivian journalists Male journalists Bolivian essayists Hispanic and Latino American writers 1958 births Living people Writers from La Paz

Biography

Bibliography

External links

References