JOSÉ DE LA CUADRA: BIOGRAPHY AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

José de la Cuadra (1903 - 1941) was an Ecuadorian writer and politician who belonged to the Guayaquil Group. His stories were part of the most prominent literature of social realism in Ecuador.

From a very young age he was drawn to writing and letters. He participated in the writing of the magazine Juventud Estudiosa. Cuadra's earliest inclinations were toward literary modernism.

Jose de la Cuadra

During his life, Cuadra had various occupations. He graduated as a lawyer and with his thesis he obtained the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence and Social Sciences, he was also a journalist, politician, teacher and writer. While studying at the University of Guayaquil, he had relationships with student groups of the time.

As for the law career, he practiced it as a litigator, judge and also as a university professor, but there he did not find his greatest achievements.

His literary aptitude was exposed from his first stories in 1923, when he was just 20 years old. Later, he worked in the Ecuadorian newspaper El Telégrafo. Cuadra was a member of the Ecuadorian Socialist Party since it was created in the mid-twenties.

His narrative did not focus on teaching the reader about doctrines, but social sensitivity was always present in José de la Cuadra's work. He also maintained a highly celebrated narrative style, even by members of his generation who considered him superior.

In 1934 Cuadra was Secretary of the Government of Guayas. Later, he worked as a Consular Agent for the government of Alberto Enríquez Gallo at the end of the 1930s. In this office he was targeted at countries such as Uruguay and Argentina.

His last literary work, which was named Guásinton, was a sort of compilation of his works throughout various periods of the author's life. José de la Cuadra died early, when he was 37 years old from a brain hemorrhage.

Biography

Early years

José de la Cuadra y Vargas was born on September 3, 1903 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He was the son of Vicente de la Cuadra y Bayas, a Guayaquil merchant of noble Basque descent, and of Ana Victoria Vargas and Jiménez Arias, daughter of Colonel José María Vargas Plaza.

Vicente de la Cuadra died young, so his son José and his wife Ana Victoria were left in the care of the child's maternal grandfather. The writer claimed that the happiest years of his childhood were spent in the colonial house where he lived with his family.

The boy attended high school at Colegio Vicente Rocafuerte. At the same time, Cuadra was studying, on the recommendation of his grandfather, accounting at the school of Professor Marco A. Reinoso.

Cuadra's first literary incursion of which a record is kept is a story called “The fruits of folly”, published in the first issue of Fiat-Lux magazine in 1918.

Later that year, another text of his entitled "Things of life" was found, published in the first issue of Melpómene, a scientific and literary magazine that was edited by Cuadra himself, 15 years old at the time, together with Jorge Japhel Matamoros. This publication only reached three deliveries.

University stage

In 1921 José de la Cuadra received his bachelor's degree. At this time, the social environment of the country was at a sensitive point that later detonated in the Revolution of November 15, 1922.

During this period, Cuadra entered the University of Guayaquil as a law student. The social struggle and his profession as a lawyer had an influence on his literary and narrative work throughout his entire career.

Between 1919 and 1920 he was part of the editorial staff of the Student Youth. In the texts of Cuadra of that time, her firm inclination towards modernism is observed. At this time she only published poetry and notes in lyrical prose.

Some of his texts published in various literary magazines of that time were: "Sangre de Incas" and "Decepción", both from 1919, also the following year he published "A la pálida" and later "Symbol" (1922), "Dead Bride (1922), as well as "From the backwater" (1923) and "Route" (1924).

In 1923 Cuadra got a teaching position and later as a librarian at the Vicente Rocafuerte College, the same one where he had studied.

José de la Cuadra, in 1924, published a collection of stories under the title Oro de sol. Also that year he began working as a journalist for the newspaper El Telégrafo, where he wrote the female column under the alias Ruy Lucanor.

Right

In 1927, José de la Cuadra obtained a Bachelor of Law degree but, thanks to the presentation of his thesis, which dealt with marriage and civil law, he obtained a Doctorate in Jurisprudence and Social Sciences.

Then he dedicated himself to the practice of law in an office together with Dr. Pedro Pablo Pín Moreno. There, Cuadra usually handled cases of poor clients who were charged symbolic sums for their services.

Political career

With the revolution of 25 and the founding of the Ecuadorian Socialist Party in 1926, in which Cuadra was a member, the social vocation, which he expressed both in his actions and in his writings, was awakened even more in Quito.

He tried to carry out the project of a Popular University, in which low-income students were admitted, but this idea failed. Also at this time he served as president of the Guayaquil University Center and the Southern Federation of University Students.

Years later, in 1934, he was appointed Secretary of the Government of Guayas by Roberto Barquerizo Moreno. At the same time, José de la Cuadra was constantly engaged in literary activity.

A year later, Cuadra separated from politics to work as a professor at the University of Guayaquil.

In 1937 he returned to the post of Secretary of the Government of Guayas, this time alongside Colonel Jorge Quintana, who was not in the office for a long time, as he was appointed Minister of Government and took Cuadra as Secretary of the Ministry.

The following year José de la Cuadra was appointed Visitor of Consulates, and there he toured the Latin American continent, as he was in Peru, Bolivia, Chile and, in Buenos Aries, Argentina, he was Consul General.

Literary race

During the 1920s, José de la Cuadra collaborated in various print media, but his pen reached its highest point in the 1930s. It is then that he stands as the greatest exponent of the Ecuadorian story.

His style progressively separated from modernism and began to be oriented towards social realism. That was marked with Ledges, a selection of 21 stories in which the author reveals himself to be promising and mature.

He was part of the Guayaquil Group, and among them he was considered the greatest, not in age, but in talent. Cuadra's top work was Sanguarimas from 1934.

Regarding his pen, Benjamín Carrión wrote that José de la Cuadra “was above all, sincere. And being bold, very respectful of the work of art. He did not use expressive rawness as a rocket fire to dazzle or frighten the unwary, but as an artistic necessity. He did not shout ideological audacity, he did not expressly teach, but how much this permanent teacher taught and will still teach, for justice and art ”.

Personal life

On March 24, 1928, José de la Cuadra married Inés Núñez del Arco. The eldest sons, Jaime and Guillermo, one died of being born prematurely in 1930 and the other as a result of a high fever that led him to convulse, the following year.

Ana Tula, the eldest daughter of Cuadra and Nuñez, was a healthy girl. She was followed by Olga Violeta, who was in serious condition due to pneumonia, but was saved. Finally Juan was born, the only male who survived.

It is said that José de la Cuadra was a dedicated and loving father with his family. Although a womanizer and gallant, he had a good relationship with his wife Inés, who was not a jealous woman and even helped him with the idea notes for his stories.

When he traveled to Buenos Aires, he had to sell his grandfather's house where he grew up to pay for his family's travel expenses. So he sent his mother, Ana Victoria Vargas, to live with her in-laws.

It is said that at this time the writer was drunk, which affected the family economy. When they returned from Argentina, they rented a house in Guayaquil and Cuadra's wife worked making cloth hats.

Death

José de la Cuadra died in Guayaquil on February 27, 1941 at the young age of 37.

At the carnival, the author decided to stay home playing with his children, the next morning he woke up feeling unwell and requested a visit from a doctor who recommended rest and prescribed a sedative, thinking that it was anxiety.

That same night Cuadra felt a severe headache and exclaimed that he did not want to die. When his wife came to his aid, Cuadra was already partially immobile by a cerebral hemorrhage.

He was taken to the hospital, but the efforts were in vain as José de la Cuadra died within hours.

There are two versions of his death, one assures that the day before he had drunk excess alcohol and his liver eventually collapsed, while Cuadra already suffered from cirrhosis due to his alcohol consumption.

However, his wife Inés Núñez assured that Cuadra had not consumed alcohol throughout the day of his death and that it was due to a syncope.

Work

Style

José de la Cuadra has particular characteristics in terms of his style. He was aware of the social and experiential tragedy of Ecuadorians, with which he was sensitized thanks to his leftist political stance and with which he came into contact when he was practicing law.

Despite this, Cuadra embodied a particular humor in his writings. She approached social criticism through irony.

His studies gave him extensive knowledge about the psyche of a criminal. In his work, Cuadra took advantage of this and exploited it in his texts in which murders, anomalies and sexual abuse were some of the recurring themes.

The Ecuadorian's narrative was dominated by elements such as fate and tragedy, since the heroes of his stories were usually guided by the former to the latter.

He preferred to move away from the colonial conception of narratives that portrayed aristocratic, white Ecuadorians and that reflected Ecuador almost as a European country. On the contrary, it showed an indigenous and mestizo country, with particular difficulties and problems.

He separated the image of Ecuador as an independent nation with its own dynamics and created a literary concept that, practically, had not been explored in the country until then.

The Guayaquil Group

Benjamín Carrión considered that when talking about José de la Cuadra he was talking about the best Ecuadorian storyteller. Carrión was the one who assigned the name of Grupo de Guayaquil to Cuadra, Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco, Demetrio Aguilera Malta, Joaquín Gallegos Lara and Enrique Gil Gilbert.

For his part, Pareja claimed that Cuadra was "the oldest of the five", he also clarified that it was not a question of age, but of mastery.

Despite that, Cuadra was older than all the members of the group; when he was publishing his first works, the rest were just children. Cuadra was the pioneer of Ecuadorian social realism.

Works- publications

Camila Garzón, from Wikimedia Commons

Stories

- "The fruits of folly", in Fiat-Lux magazine, No. 1, Guayaquil, April 1918.

- "Things of life", in Melpómene magazine, No. 1, Guayaquil, June 1918.

- Oro de sol, newsletter published by El Telégrafo, Guayaquil, 1925.

- Perlita Lila (memories), Short Lectures Collection, 1st series, No. 3, Guayaquil, Editorial Mundo Moderno, 1925.

- Dream of a Christmas night, Guayaquil, Senefelder Graphic Arts, 1930.

- The love that slept… (short stories), Guayaquil, Senefelder Graphic Arts, 1930.

- Shelves (short stories), Guayaquil, Senefelder Graphic Arts, 1931.

- Oven. Tales, Guayaquil, Workshops of the Philanthropic Society, 1932.

- Guasinton. Stories and Chronicles, prologue by Isaac J. Barrera, Quito, Graphic Workshops on Education, 1938.

- Oven, América Collection, 2nd Edition, Buenos Aires, Perseo Editions, 1940.

- "Galleros", Hombre de América Magazine, Buenos Aires, January 1940.

Poetry

- "Sangre de Incas", in the magazine Juventud studios, year I, No. 12, Guayaquil, March-April 1919.

- "Deception", in the magazine Juventud studios, year I, No. 3, Guayaquil, June 1919.

- “A la pálida”, in the magazine Juventud studios, year I, nº 9-11, Guayaquil, December 1919-February 1920.

- "Symbol", in Science and Letters magazine, year XII, No. 91, Guayaquil, June 1922.

- "Dead bride", in magazine Ciencias y letras, year XII, No. 93, Guayaquil, August 1922.

- "From the backwater", in Cosmos magazine, Guayaquil.

- “Ruta”, in Bohemia magazine, year I, No. 1, Guayaquil, July 20, 1924.

- "For you", in Savia magazine, Guayaquil, 1926.

- "Old portrait", in Cinco como un puño: poetry by the "Grupo de Guayaquil", Guayaquil, House of Ecuadorian Culture, 1991.

Novels

- Olga Catalina, Short Lectures Collection, Guayaquil, Editorial Mundo Moderno, 1925.

- The Sangurimas. Ecuadorian montuvia novel, Spanish and Hispano-American Literary Panorama Collection, Madrid, Editorial Cénit, 1934.

- The Sangurimas. Novela montuvia, 2nd Edition Collection Club del Libro Ecuatoriano, Guayaquil, Editora Noticia, 1939.

- The crazed monkeys, preliminary study by Benjamín Carrión, Library of Ecuadorian Relators, Quito, House of Ecuadorian Culture, 1951.

essays

- The Ecuadorian Montuvio, prologue signed by the editors, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Imán, 1937.

References

1. Landázuri, A. (2011). The sangurima legacy. Quito: INPC, National Institute of Cultural Heritage.
2. Avilés Pino, E. (2018). Cuadra José de la - Historical Characters - Encyclopedia Del Ecuador. Encyclopedia Of Ecuador. Available at: encyclopediadelecuador.com.
3. Schwartz, K. (1957). José de la Cuadra. Revista Iberoamericana, 22 (43), pp. 95-107.
4. En.wikipedia.org. (2018). José de la Cuadra. Available at: en.wikipedia.org.
5. Cuadra, J. and Vintimilla, M. (2013). Twelve stories; The Sangurimas. 2nd ed. Quito: Librea.
6. Pérez Pimentel, R. (2018). JOSÉ DE LA CUADRA Y VARGAS. Biographical Dictionary of Ecuador. Available at:biograficoecuador.com dictionary.