JORGE ICAZA CORONEL: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Jorge Icaza Coronel (1906 - 1978) was an Ecuadorian writer of the 20th century. He was a native of the city of Quito and was universally known for his novel Huasipungo, which showed the mistreatment that whites inflicted on indigenous people in Ecuador.

He began his career writing screenplays, having belonged to a performing arts group. Some of his early works were named El Intruso, Por el Viejo y Sin Sentido. From there he migrated to stories and novels. The style of Icaza Coronel stood out for having a marked indigenous cut in its theme.

Post of Ecuador, via Wikimedia Commons

For the works that Icaza Coronel wrote, he was considered an author of protest. In addition, Quito was associated with leftist literature, framed in the proletarian novel, which in Ecuador took the indigenous as protagonists.

His contributions to Ecuadorian culture and literature were not in vain, since Jorge Icaza Coronel served the government as Ecuador's ambassador in Moscow, Russia. He also served as cultural attaché of the Republic in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Among his best-known literary works are, in addition to Huasipungo, titles such as: Cholos, published in 1938; Dazzled Half Life, 1942; Seis Relatos, which was released in 1952, El Chulla Romero y Flores, from 1958, and Atrapados, one of his most mature works published in 1973.

Biography

Early years

Jorge Icaza Coronel was born on July 10, 1906 in Quito, Ecuador. He was the son of José Antonio Icaza Manzo, a liberal who fled the city after the fall of General Eloy Alfaro in 1910, and who soon orphaned his son due to an ulcer.

Together with his mother, Amelia Coronel Pareja, Jorge Icaza moved to Chimborazo. There his family owned a homonymous farm. It was in these lands where the boy came into contact with the indigenous people of the area, their language and customs.

Amelia Coronel remarried in 1911 with a merchant named José Alejandro Peñaherrera Oña. Then, the child was left in the care of the Salazar Gómez couple in Quito.

Later, he returned to his mother's side, as the adaptation conflicts that arose with his stepfather were resolved and a beautiful relationship was born between them.

Upon returning to his mother, Icaza Coronel began his education by attending the school of the Señoritas de Toledo and later at the San Luis Gonzaga school. From 1917 she attended the San Gabriel school and two years later she entered the Instituto Nacional Mejía, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1924.

Youth

Jorge Icaza Coronel was attracted to medicine and the same year as his high school graduation he entered the Faculty to obtain a medical degree.

However, her stepfather died in 1925 and her mother the following year. Then, Icaza Coronel was left without support and without ties in the world.

As a young man, Icaza Coronel was an outgoing and handsome boy. He decided to enter the world of dramatic arts and it was then that he entered the National Conservatory as a theater student.

His debut was at the renowned Sucre Theater, there he appeared in the play Asirse de un cabello and his participation caused fervor in the critics. From that presentation she joined the National Dramatic Company, which showed in Quito the most recent of the tables in the world.

During those years, Jorge Icaza Coronel awoke his true calling, that is, writing. He devoted himself to this work first by arranging texts and then creating his own scripts for plays such as El Intruso, a three-act comedy in which he was also one of the actors in 1928.

In 1929 he presented two other works called La Comedia sin Nombre and Por el Viejo. In addition, Icaza Coronel wrote for a magazine titled Claridad.

Literary beginnings

Jorge Icaza Coronel continued in the theater for a while longer. Apart from his career as an actor and playwright, he had other jobs, among them he served as Senior Official of the Treasury.

He started his own company, which he named after the actress Marina Moncayo, who was part of that group. With her he premiered ¿Qué es?, a work written by the same Icaza Coronel. Later, she continued to perfect herself in dramaturgy, in which she increasingly showed greater mastery.

His first steps off the stage were taken in 1933 with the work Barro de Sierra, a series of short stories that captivated critics. The following year, Fenia Cristina Studeza Moncayo was born, a daughter she had with Marina Moncayo, who was her wife from 1936, as well as a co-worker.

Literature

The true outbreak of fame for Jorge Icaza Coronel came in 1934 with the publication of his work Huasipungo, by the National Graphic Workshops. This became the author's most famous novel.

In the lines of Huasipungo, he reflected the suffering of the indigenous people of Ecuador caused by the white lords, who gave the natives cruel and sadistic treatments.

Two years after its first edition, Icaza's debut novel toured the world at the hands of Editorial Sol, which made it the novel of the year. Some consider that this work overshadowed the rest of the author's work with which he also addressed the life of Ecuadorian mestizos.

In 1935, Icaza Coronel published On the streets, which won the First Prize in the National Contest of Grupo América in Quito. In his plot he mixed the agrarian with the urban element, thus joining two worlds that both in life and in literature had been estranged in Ecuador.

He did not completely separate from the theater, where he took his first steps, since he continued to write plays such as Flagelo, which he published in 1940.

Race

In 1937 he founded the Agencia General de Publicaciones bookstore, together with Pedro Jorge Vera and Genaro Carnero Checa. In that establishment the Guayaquil intelligentsia met, but it did not produce great profits. The following year he began directing the magazine of the Writers and Artists Union.

In 1940, Icaza Coronel attended the 1st Indigenous Congress in Mexico and acted as a lecturer in Costa Rica. Thanks to Huasipungo, the fame of the Ecuadorian spread rapidly throughout the continent.

He was always concerned about the recognition and work of the artists of his country. When the House of Ecuadorian Culture was born in 1944, Jorge Icaza Coronel was involved, since he was one of the founders of this entity.

He maintained ties with the political left. Icaza Coronel's work was always loaded with social content. He attended the inauguration of Venezuelan President Rómulo Gallegos, who like Icaza was a writer.

In 1949 he served the government of Galo Plaza as Cultural Attaché in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ten years later he was occupying the position of Director of the National Library. At that time, Icaza Coronel made an international tour that took him to the Chinese Soviet Union and several European countries.

Last years

Starting in the seventies, Jorge Icaza Coronel began to affirm that he felt his health was deteriorating. Despite this, he resisted with strength almost a decade of life in which he even published some works.

In 1973 he was in the United States of America as a lecturer and then began to serve as Ambassador of the Republic of Ecuador to the Soviet Union, Poland and West Germany.

Death

Jorge Icaza Coronel died on May 26, 1978 in Quito, Ecuador, at the age of 71. The writer had been the victim of stomach cancer.

Style

Jorge Icaza Coronel showed great interest in the life of the Ecuadorian indigenous and mestizo in his texts. That is why he was considered an indigenous writer, despite the fact that in his work the elements of traditions are fused with social criticism.

His work also has strong features that make it part of Latin American social realism, which in the 20th century served as a mirror for European proletarian stories.

Plays

Novel

- Huasipungo. Quito, National Printing Office, 1934.

- On the streets. Quito, National Printing Office, 1935.

- Cholos, 1938. Quito, Editorial Sindicato de Escritores y Artistas.

- Half a life dazzled, 1942. Quito, Editorial Quito.

- Huairapamushcas, 1948. Quito, House of Ecuadorian Culture.

- El Chulla Romero y Flores, 1958. Quito, House of Ecuadorian Culture.

- In the chola house, 1959. Quito, Annals of the Central University.

Short stories

- Barro de la Sierra. Quito, Editorial Labor.

- Six stories, 1952. Quito, House of Ecuadorian Culture.

- Stories, 1969. Buenos Aires, Editorial Universitaria.

- Trapped and The oath, 1972. Buenos Aires, Losada.

- Barranca Grande and Mama Pacha, 1981.

Theater

- As they want, 1931.

- Nonsense, 1932. Quito, Editorial Labor.

- Flagelo, 1936. Quito, National Printing Office.

References

1. En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Jorge Icaza Coronel. Available at: en.wikipedia.org.
2. Pérez Pimentel, R. (2018). JORGE ICAZA CORONEL. Biographical Dictionary of Ecuador. Available at:biograficoecuador.com dictionary.
3. Avilés Pino, E. (2018). Icaza Coronel Jorge - Historical Characters - Encyclopedia Del Ecuador. Encyclopedia Of Ecuador. Available at: encyclopediadelecuador.com.
4. Herbst, M. (2018). Jorge Icaza. Essayists.org. Available at: essayists.org.
5. Castellano, P. and Orero Sáez de Tejada, C. (2000). Espasa Encyclopedia. Madrid: Espasa, vol 10, pp. 6123.