ANDRÉS CAICEDO: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE, WORKS, PHRASES - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

Andrés Caicedo (1951-1977) was a Colombian film writer and critic who focused his work on the problems presented by society in the mid-twentieth century. The existence of this intellectual was short, but he headed several important cultural groups in his native Cali and left an original and creative literature.

Caicedo's literary work was characterized by being realistic around statutes and social conflicts. The writer used a cultured, precise and sometimes satirical language. His production covered the development of novels, short stories, scripts for theater and cinema. Due to the short duration of his life, Andrés Caicedo did not manage to see his entire work published.

Andrés Caicedo. Source: writers.org.

To a large extent, the author's literary repertoire came to light after his suicide. Some of the best known titles were: Berenice, The crossed one, Fatal destinies, Calibanism, Long live music !, The curious consciences and Receiving the new student.

Biography

Birth and family

Luis Andrés Caicedo Estela was born on September 29, 1951 in Santiago de Cali in the department of Valle del Cauca. The writer came from a cultured family with a good socioeconomic status. His parents were Carlos Alberto Caicedo and Nellie Estela. He was the youngest of four brothers.

Studies

Andrés Caicedo studied primary and secondary school in different institutions, this was because he was withdrawn for bad behavior. He passed through the Pío XII and El Pilar schools in his hometown, then he was enrolled in the Calasanz de Medellín. At that time he developed his first writings and manifested his passion for cinema and theater.

Caicedo did not improve his behavior in Medellín and returned to Cali. There he joined the classrooms of the San Juan Berchmans and San Luis institutions, being expelled from both. The rebel Andrés managed to complete his baccalaureate at the Camacho Perea College in 1968. Then he began higher studies at the Universidad del Valle.

Literary development

Andrés Caicedo's taste for letters, theater and cinema increased in his high school years. The nascent writer developed his first play in 1966, which he titled Curious Consciences.

At that time, Caicedo wrote the short story Infección and he made his debut as a theater director in 1967 with The Bald Singer by the playwright Eugène Ionesco.

Theatrical boom

Caicedo was a virtuoso for the theater and that led him to write several pieces in his high school years. In 1967 the new author produced the following works: The end of the holidays, The skin of the other hero, Receiving the new student and The imbeciles are witness.

Signature of Andrés Caicedo. Source: Sahaquiel9102, via Wikimedia Commons

Later Andrés participated in the First Student Theater Festival of Cali and won with La piel del otro hero. Caicedo entered the Cali Experimental Theater (TEC) in 1969 and served as an actor in several plays, including Six Hours in the Life of Frank Kulak.

Highest production stage

Andrés Caicedo was a creative and ingenious young man and this was reflected in 1969, one of the most productive years of his professional career. On that date, he made his mark in the newspapers El Pueblo, El País and Occidente as a film critic. In addition to this, the writer won several awards with some of his works.

Caricature of Andrés Caicedo. source: Alexrocaricaturas, via Wikimedia Commons

The author was awarded by the Universidad del Valle for the story Berenice. Later his talent crossed borders when he obtained second place in the Latin American Short Story Contest in Venezuela, there he participated with the story Los teeth de Caperucita

Caicedo remained in the theater and wrote several narrative works, among them That's why I return to my city.

Caicedo and the cinema

The talented young man not only settled for being a film critic, but he brought his passion to the community. This is how in 1971 he created the Cali Cine-Club in the company of his friends Hernando Guerrero, Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo. With this project, Andrés managed to form a significant cultural movement in his hometown.

The Cali Cine-Club presented productions that attracted students, professionals, moviegoers and intellectuals. The purpose was to awaken a critical and interpretive consciousness about the seventh art in the community that attended the screenings.

Between theater and narrative

At the height of his youth, Andrés Caicedo continued to position himself in the literary society of his time. The writer staged the adaptation of The Night of the Assassins by Cuban José Triana in 1971. At that time he expanded his repertoire with the stories Destinitos fatales, Patricialinda, Calibanismo, El crossed and Angelita and Miguel Ángel.

Caicedo's theatrical inspiration remained active in the early 1970s. In 1972, the intellectual took to the stage the play El mar, which based on a work by Harold Pinter. That same year she failed in her attempt to bring Angelita and Miguel Ángel to the movies.

Time in United States

Andrés Caicedo's fondness for cinema led him to the United States in 1973. His mission was to commercialize the scripts for two films entitled La estirpe sin nombre and La sombra sobre Innsmouth. The author first arrived in Los Angeles and then headed to New York.

Caicedo did not obtain the expected result, possibly due to the competitive and difficult environment of Hollywood that did not allow him to sell his texts for feature films. However, the writer did not stop and took advantage of the time to start his most famous novel ¡Que viva la Música!

Last years and death

Caicedo returned to his country in 1974 and continued with his professional performance. That same year he wrote the story Maternidad that was published in the first installment of his magazine Ojo al cine. He returned to North America to intervene at the New York Film Festival.

Andrés' thought that life after the age of twenty-five was “nonsense” led him to attempt on his life twice in 1976. After failing in his attempt, he continued with his professional career. Finally, the writer committed suicide in his native Cali on March 4, 1977 with an overdose of barbiturates.

Style

Image of the play Angelitos bogged down, presented by the Matacandelas Theater in 2003. Source: No machine-readable author provided. Davidcc6 ~ commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., via Wikimedia Commons

Andrés Caicedo's literary style was characterized by reflecting and describing in an original way the social reality of the middle of the 20th century. His work was influenced by the reading of authors of the stature of Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar and Mario Vargas Llosa. The writer used clear language and urban words.

Fantasy and magic prevailed in Caicedo's literature, through which the writer reflected his reality. His stories were about young people, city life, music, cinema, sex, love, madness and vices. The intellectual narrated almost all his works in the first person.

Plays

Stories

Infection

It was a story that Caicedo wrote when he was only fifteen years old and that was based on the perception of an adolescent boy about the society in which he lived, the functioning of its organisms or institutions and about his own life. The play was characterized by the protagonist's feelings of anguish and frustration.

Fragment

Fragment of That is why I return to my city

Phrases

- “To hate is to love without loving. Wanting is fighting for what you want and hating is not being able to achieve what you fight for. To love is to want everything, to fight for everything, and even so, to continue with the heroism of continuing to love ”.

- “Everything was the same as the other times. A party. Something in which one desperately tries to change the tedious routine, but never can. "

- “And someday, despite myself, I will bring up the theory that the book lies, the cinema exhausts, burn them both, leave nothing but music. If I go there, it is that we go there ”.

- "We do not know what your presence obeys, but you are there, love, totally uprooted from what surrounds us."

- "And gouty sweat that I would have sucked to make them tears of my emotion."

- "I will dedicate my life to hustle and bustle and disorder will be my master."

- "Whatever I did, whatever I decided, whatever the rest of my days, that anger would always be there to hinder any action, a final exam for which I would never study, an oral lesson not given."

- "Get ahead of death, give him an appointment."

- "Do not worry. Die before your parents to free them from the gruesome vision of your old age. And find me there where everything is gray and there is no suffering ”.

- "A song that does not age is the universal decision that my mistakes have been forgiven."

References

1. Andrés Caicedo. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Andrés Caicedo Estela. (2017). Colombia: Banrepcultural. Recovered from: encyclopedia.banrepcultural.org.
3. Andrés Caicedo's narrative and his other speeches. (S. f.). Colombia: Isaacs Virtual Center. Recovered from: cvisaacs.univalle.edu.co.
4. Gómez, J. (2018). Andrés Caicedo and the literature of the suicide. (N / a): Prodavinci. Recovered from: prodavinci.com.
5. Andrés Caicedo. (S. f.). (N / a): Writers. Recovered from: writers.org.