Candelario Obeso (12 January 1849 – 3 July 1884) was a Colombian poet. He is known as a precursor of the ''Poesía Negra y oscura (black and dark poetry)'' in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Life

Obeso was biracial, born of a white ''hacendado'' and a black maid in Mompox, Colombia on 12 January 1849. He studied at Colegio Pinillos de Mompox. In 1886 he obtained a scholarship to do his higher studies at Colegio Militar de Bogotá, and a year later he entered the Universidad Nacional de Colombia where he started engineering, law and political science, but due to economical struggle, he was unable to graduate from any faculty. He had several jobs during short periods of time. Due to his friendship with influential personalities of the time, he was named consul in

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

, France and national interpreter in Panama. He also worked as a school teacher in Sucre and municipal treasurer of Magangué. He faced racial discrimination and economical struggle. He fell in love with a white high-society woman who rejected his poems on love and who soon got engaged to a rich man. Heartbroken, he shot himself in the chest and died 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 ...

a few days later. His remains are in the cemetery of Mompox. Tumba Candelario Obeso

Legacy

He is known as the precursor of the ''Poesía Negra y oscura'' (black and dark poetry) in Colombia, a literary style that focused on describing the daily activities performed by the Colombian black communities. He wrote his narrative in the first person and using the language the Afrocolombian communities spoke. An example of this is his first book of poems, ''Cantos Populares de mi Tierra'', published by Imprenta de Borda in 1887. He also wrote ''La familia Pygmalion'' (1871), ''Lectura para ti'' (1878), ''Secundino el Zapatero'' (1880) and ''Lucha de la vida'' (1882). He translated into Spanish Shakespeare's ''

Othello ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'', often shortened to ''Othello'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulat ...

'', and works from Víctor Hugo,

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

, Musset, Longfellow,

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

and Jonathan Lawrence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obeso, Candelario 1849 births 1884 deaths Colombian writers 19th-century Colombian poets National University of Colombia alumni People from Bolívar Department Suicides by firearm in Colombia English–Spanish translators German–Spanish translators Colombian translators Translators of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Translators of William Shakespeare Colombian people of African descent 1880s suicides