José Antonio Ramos Sucre (

Cumaná Cumaná () is the capital city of Venezuela's Sucre State. It is located east of Caracas. Cumaná was one of the first cities founded by Spain in the mainland Americas and is the oldest continuously-inhabited Hispanic-established city in Sout ...

, 9 June 1890 –

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, 13 June 1930) was a

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

n poet,

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

and

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

. He was a member of the Sucre family of Venezuela and the great-great-nephew of

Antonio José de Sucre Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá (; 3 February 1795 – 4 June 1830), known as the "Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho" (), was a Venezuelan general and politician who served as the president of Bolivia from 1825 to 1828. A close friend and associate ...

. He was educated at the Colegio Nacional, and then at the Universidad Central de Venezuela where he studied Law, Letters and Languages (ancient and modern

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

Non Literary Career

Upon finishing his studies, and becoming proficient in Portuguese, Latin, Danish, English, French, German, Italian and Swedish, he worked as a translator and interpreter at the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

of Venezuela and later as Consul to Geneva where he died in 1930. At the same time, Ramos Sucre served as a Professor of World History, World Geography, History & Geography of Venezuela, Latin and Greek. He also briefly worked as a Civil Court judge.

Poetry and Works

He is best remembered however for his work in poetry and literature, amongst them: * ''Trizas de papel'' (1921) * ''Sobre las huellas de Humboldt'' (1923) * ''La torre de Timón'' (1925) * ''Las formas del fuego'' (1929) * ''El cielo de esmalte'' (1929) In 1956, the Venezuelan Ministry of Education published his work in the collection ''Biblioteca Popular Venezolana'', and in the 1960s he would become to the new generations one of the most valid references for excellence. He is remembered as ''"the poet of pain, a poet who felt a hypnotic fascination for the obscure and the abyss, a poet that suffers in his loneliness"'', according to the Venezuelan poet and literary critic Francisco Pérez Perdomo.

Honors

To honor his memory, the

University of Salamanca The University of Salamanca () is a public university, public research university in Salamanca, Spain. Founded in 1218 by Alfonso IX of León, King Alfonso IX, it is the oldest university in the Hispanic world and the fourth oldest in the ...

, created the José Antonio Ramos Sucre Professorship of Venezuelan Literature and in 1999, the Fondo de Cultura Económica de México published the book ''Obra Poética'', comprising his poetic works, with a prologue by his cousin Guillermo Sucre. His collected writings are also available in ''Obra completa'', edited by José Ramón Medina (Caracas: Fundación Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989) and ''Obra poética: Edición crítica'', edited by Alba Rosa Hernández Bossio (Paris: UNESCO/Colección Archivos, 2001). In 2006, Venezuelan novelist Rubi Guerra was awarded the Premio de Novela Corta Rufino Blanco Fombona for his novella based on Ramos Sucre's final months in Europe, ''La tarea del testigo'' (Caracas: Fundación Editorial El perro y la rana, 2007). A second edition of ''La tarea del testigo'' was published in 2012 by Lugar Común in Caracas. An English translation of his poetry appeared in 2012 under the title ''José Antonio Ramos Sucre: Selected Works'', selected and translated by Guillermo Parra and published by the University of New Orleans Press.

Translations

English

*
José Antonio Ramos Sucre: Selected Works
', translated by Guillermo Parra (New Orleans, LA:

University of New Orleans The University of New Orleans (UNO) is a Public university, public research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. First opened in 1958 as Louisiana State University in New Orleans, it is the largest public university and one of t ...

Press, 2012). *
José Antonio Ramos Sucre. Selected Works: expanded edition
'', translated by Guillermo Parra (Las Cruces, NM: Noemi Press, 2016). * José Antonio Ramos Sucre, ''From the Livid Country'', translated by Guillermo Parra (San Francisco, CA
Auguste Press
2012).

Other languages

French

* José Antonio Ramos Sucre,
Le chant inquiet. El canto anhelante
', tr. François Migeot, (Caracas, Venezuela: Monte Ávila Editores/Massif Jurassien, France: L’Atelier du Grand Tétras, 2009).

Portuguese

* ''As formas do fogo'', anthology, bilingual edition, selected and translated by José Bento, Eugenio Montejo, forewords. Venezuelan Embassy, Lisbon, Publicações Dom Quixote, 1992, oclc 768341268. * ''O mensageiro/El mensajero'', Floriano Martins (trans.),

', nº 1 (set/2010), Fpolis/Brasil, ISSN 2177-5141

External links

*
Obra completa (Caracas: Fundación Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989) - Free PDF file of Complete Works of Ramos Sucre
*
Ramos Sucre Portal at Cervantes Virtual
*
El Insomne Visionario - Ramos Sucre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramos Sucre People from Cumaná Venezuelan male writers 1890 births 1930 suicides 1930 deaths Central University of Venezuela alumni Academic staff of the Central University of Venezuela 20th-century Venezuelan poets 20th-century Venezuelan male writers Suicides in Switzerland Venezuelan people of Portuguese descent Sucre family Venezuelan educational theorists Multilingual writers Multilingual poets