Álvaro Mutis Jaramillo (August 25, 1923 – September 22, 2013) was a Colombian poet, novelist, and essayist. His best-known work is the

novel sequence A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their publ ...

'' The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll'', which revolves around the character of Maqroll el Gaviero. He won the 1991 International Nonino Prize in Italy. He was awarded the 2001

Miguel de Cervantes Prize The Miguel de Cervantes Prize () is awarded annually to honour the lifetime achievement of an outstanding writer in the Spanish language. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls it "most prestigious and remunerative award given for Spanish-languag ...

and the 2002

Neustadt International Prize for Literature The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award for literature sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, ''World Literature Today''. It is considered one of the more prestigious int ...

Early life

Mutis was born in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

and lived in

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from the age of two until eleven, where his father, Santiago Mutis Dávila, held a post as a diplomat. They would return to Colombia by ship for summer holidays. During this time Mutis' family stayed at his grandfather's coffee and sugar cane plantation, Coello. For Álvaro Mutis, the impressions of these early years, his reading of

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

and of

Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda ( ; ; born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 190423 September 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old an ...

's '' Residencia en la tierra'', and, especially, contact with "el trópico" (the tropics), are the mainspring of his work. Mutis studied high school at the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario in Bogotá under the tutelage of the Colombian poet Eduardo Carranza. Although he never finished school, he entered the literary world in Bogotá as a poet, a member of the Cántico group that emerged in 1940s. In 1948 Mutis and Carlos Patiño published a chapbook of poems called ''La balanza.'' From 1956 on, he lived in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, gaining renown there as the result of the positive reviews of his work by

Octavio Paz Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, a ...

, who was a champion of Mutis' early poetry. The first important recognition of Álvaro Mutis's work was in 1974: the National Prize for Letters of Colombia.

Literary career

Mutis' poetry was first published in 1948 and his first short stories in 1978. His first novella featuring Maqroll, ''La nieve del Almirante'' ('' The Snow of the Admiral'') was published in 1986 and gained him popular and critical acclaim. He has received many literary awards, including the

Prix Médicis The Prix Médicis () is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by and .

(France, 1989), Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras (Spain, 1997), Premio Miguel de Cervantes (Spain, 2001), and the

(United States, 2002), for ''The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll'', a volume collecting all seven novellas about Maqroll the Gaviero. Mutis has combined his career as a writer of poetry and prose with a diverse set of non-literary occupations. Like his protagonist Maqroll, Mutis traveled widely in his professional roles including five years as

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company was a Trust (business), corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil of Ohio, Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founde ...

's public relations director and over 20 years as sales manager for

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and

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

in their Latin American television divisions. Latin Americans first became familiar with his voice when he did the narration for the Spanish-language television version of '' The Untouchables''. In the 1950s, Mutis spent 15 months in a Mexican prison

Palacio de Lecumberri The Palacio de Lecumberri is a large building, formerly a prison, in the northeast of Mexico City, Mexico, which now houses the General National Archive (Mexico), General National Archive (''Archivo General de la Nación''). Known in popular cult ...

as a consequence of his handling of money that had been set aside for charitable use by

. He had been using the money to help his friends who were under threat from the military dictatorship in Colombia, and after he fled to Mexico, the Mexican government bowed to Colombian pressure and had him imprisoned. As soon as the Colombian dictatorship fell, the charges against him were dropped and he was freed. His experience in prison had a lasting influence on his life and work, and is chronicled in the book '' Diario de Lecumberri''.

Critical reception

Mutis' close friend, Nobel Prize-winner

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

, called him "one of the greatest writers of our time." Mutis' works are most widely read in Latin America and Europe. Mutis is not well known in the anglophone world, probably because he is not easy to categorize. His literary work is not part of what is commonly understood in the American academy as "Latin American Literature". Maqroll, his most well-known character, is of indeterminate origin, nationality, age and physiognomy. He is not evidently from Latin America and does not represent anything particularly Latin American in character. Maqroll is a solitary traveler who brings a stranger's detachment to his encounters and his lovers; he searches for meaning in a time of violence and inhumanity. In this sense some literary critics have compared Maqroll to Sophocles' Oedipus.

Political views

Mutis described himself as "reactionary, legitimist and monarchist". Labelled as an "old reactionary", he was the coauthor of the 2002 '' Manifesto Against the Death of the Spirit and the Earth'', itself described as an initiative to promote the ideas of the

Nouvelle Droite The ''Nouvelle Droite'' (, ), sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right politics, far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The ''Nouvelle Droite'' is the origin of the wider European New Right ( ...

Works

*''Diario de Lecumberri'' (1960) *''The Snow Of The Admiral'' (1986) *''Ilona Arrives with the Rain'' (1987) (loosely adapted into the 1996 film of the same name) *''The Tramp Steamer's Last Port of Call'' (1988) *''Un Bel Morir'' (1989) *''Amirbar'' (1990) *''Abdul Bashur, Dreamer of Ships'' (1991) *''Triptych on Sea and Land'' (1993) *''The Adventures of Maqroll: Four Novellas'' (1995), consisting of four previously-published: **''The Tramp Steamer's Last Port of Call'' **''Amirbar'' **''Abdul Bashur, Dreamer of Ships'' **''Triptych on Sea and Land'' *''Summa de Maqroll el Gaviero: Poesía 1948–1997'' (1997) *'' The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll'' (2002), consisting of seven previously-published novellas: **''The Snow Of The Admiral'' **''Ilona Arrives With The Rain'' **''Un Bel Morir'' **''The Tramp Steamer's Last Port of Call'' **''Amirbar'' **''Abdul Bashur, Dreamer of Ships'' **''Triptych on Sea and Land'' * ''Maqroll's Prayer and Other'' Poems (2024)

Awards and honors

*1988 Premio Xavier Villaurrutia *1991 International Nonino Prize in Italy. *1997 Premio Príncipe de Asturias *1997 Reina Sofia de Poesía *1997 Grinzane Cavour Prize *2001

*2002

References

External links

Official Page

Álvaro Mutis recorded at the Library of Congress for the Hispanic Division's audio literary archive on Jan. 27, 1976
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