Francisco de Asís Monterde García Icazbalceta (August 9, 1894 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 ...

– February 27, 1985 in Mexico City) was a prolific and multifaceted Mexican writer whose career spanned over fifty years. He was an important promoter of the arts and culture in Mexico in the years following the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

Bibliography

His parents were Francisco de Asís Ángel María Monterde y Adalid and María Trinidad de los Dolores García Icazbalceta y Travesi de Monterde, aristocrats who both died when he was still young.La Familia Monterde y Antillón en Nueva España Reconstrucción Genealógica
/ref> He studied

dentistry Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the Human tooth, teeth, gums, and Human mouth, mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, dis ...

but never practiced. In 1924 he founded and edited the short-lived Mexican

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

cultural magazine ''Antena''. In 1925 he famously deciphered a letter that

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions o ...

left written in code. He wrote, in addition to plays and poetry, various novels set in

colonial Mexico Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French colonial architecture * Spanish colonial architecture Automobiles * C ...

, a

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

known as ''colonialista''. In 1930 he created in conjunction with Alejandro Gómez Arias, the department of Mexican and Hispano-American Literature at the National Preparatory School. He was a founding member in 1938 of the Asociación Mexicana de Críticos de Teatro (AMCT). He belonged to the "''grupo de los siete autores''" (group of seven authors), a circle of dramatists active in the 1950s who revived the theatrical arts in Mexico. He was an admirer of José Juan Tablada and an imitator of the latter's

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

-inspired poetry (a style at the time referred to as ''haikai''). He held important posts in the Ministry of Public Education. He was from 1922-65 a professor of Spanish and Latin-American literature at the

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

(UNAM), his

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

( M.A. 1941, Ph.D. 1942). He served as subdirector of the Biblioteca Nacional de México; as head librarian of the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia (1931); and as director of the Imprenta Universitaria de la UNAM (UNAM University Press). He was director of the Centro Mexicano de Escritores from 1973-85. Monterde was a numerary member (

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e " seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation. Types of seat The ...

2) of the

Academia Mexicana de la Lengua The Academia Mexicana de la Lengua (variously translated as the Mexican Academy of Language, the Mexican Academy of the Language, the Mexican Academy of Letters, or glossed as the Mexican Academy of the Spanish Language; acronym AML) is the cor ...

and served as its director from 1960-72.

Awards

* Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes (1975)

Published works

(list not comprehensive) *''Los virreyes de la Nueva España. Síntesis de la época colonial'' (1922) *''Itinerario contemplativo'' (1923) *''En el remolino: drama'' (1924) *''La hermana pobreza : novela mexicana inédita'' (1925) *''Manuel Gutierrez Nájera'' (1925) *''La que volvío a la vida (comedia en tres actos)'' (1926) *''Oro Negro'' (1927) *''Amado Nervo'' (1929) *''Antología de poetas y prosistas hispanoamericanos modernos'' (1931) *''Bibliografía del teatro en México'' (1933) *''Don Juan Ruiz de Alarcón'' (1939) *''Navarrete y sus Poesias profanas'' (1939) *''Guillermo Prieto y la "Musa callejera'' (1940) *''Algunos puntos oscuros en la vida de Salvador Díaz Mirón'' (1940) *''Fábulas sin moraleja y finales de cuentos'' (1942) *''El pensamiento de Bolívar'' (1943) *''Novelistas hispanoamericanos (del prerromanticismo a la iniciación del realismo)'' (1943) *''Proteo : fábula'' (1944) *''Cultura mexicana aspectos literarios'' (1946) *''Anales de los Xahil de los indios Cakchiqueles'' (other contributors: Georges Raynaud; Miguel Ángel Asturias; J. M. González de Mendoza; Francisco Hernández Arana Xajila; Francisco Díaz Gebuta Queh) (1946) *''Moctezuma: el de la silla de oro'' (1947) *''Chapultepec: poema'' (1947) *''La careta de cristal: comedia en tres actos'' (1948) *''Tres comedias : Apostolado en las Indias y martirio de un cacique, Si el amor excede al arte, ni amor ni arte a la prudencia, La pérdida de España'' ( Eusebio Vela; Jefferson Rea Spell; Francisco Monterde) (1948) *''Una evasión romántica de Fernando Calderón : iscurso de recepción como académico de número en la Academia Mexicana' (1952) *''Dos comedias Mexicanas'' (1953) *''Teatro indígena prehispánico ( Rabinal Achí)'' (1955) (editor) *''Teatro mexicano del siglo XX'' (1956) (co-written with Manuel José Othón) *''Salvador Díaz Mirón: documentos, estética'' (1956) *''Presente involuntario : evocación dramática en tres entrevistas'' (1957) *''La dignidad de don Quijote'' (1959) *''Cuaderno de estampas'' (1961) *''Netsuke haikai'' (1962) *''Sakura, tercinas del Oriente Remoto'' (1963) *''Una moneda de oro y otros cuentos'' (1965) *''Moctezuma II, Senor del Anahuac'' (1966) *''Historia de la literatura española, e Historia de la literatura mexicana'' (1966) (co-written with Guillermo Díaz-Plaja) *''Momentos de Oaxaca'' (1967) *''El madrigal de Cetina'' (1968) *''18 novelas de "El Universal ilustrado" 1922-1925'' (1969) *''Páginas escogidas (relatos, estampas, narraciones, cuentos, novela y novela corta)'' (1969) *''Cortejo de sombras'' (1971) *''Diccionario Porrúa de la lengua española'' (1972) *''Mariano Azuela y la crítica mexicana : estudios, artículos y resenas'' (1973) *''Aspectos literarios de la cultura mexicana : poetas y prosistas del siglo XVI a nuestros días'' (1975) *''Cumbres de la poesía mexicana en los siglos XIX y XX'' (1977) *''El temor de Hernán Cortés: y otras narraciones de la Nueva España'' (1980) *''Salvador Díaz Mirón, el hombre y su obra'' (1984)

Notes

References

*(English) Cortés, Eladio, ''Dictionary of Mexican Literature''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1992. *(English) Zelson, Louis G., "Francisco Monterde (1894-)", ''The Americas'', Vol. 10, No. 2 (Oct., 1953), pp. 159–178. *(Spanish) Ocampo de Gómez, Aurora Maura, ''Diccionario de escritores mexicanos, siglo XX : desde las generaciones del Ateneo y novelistas de la Revolución hasta nuestros días''. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Centro de Estudios Literarios, 1988

External links

*(English
Francisco Monterde
*(Spanish

por José Emilio Pacheco *(Spanish
Necrología de Francisco Monterde
in ''

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