Pedro Juan Soto (1928 - 2002) was a writer, journalist, playwright and teacher from Puerto Rico. His pen gave rise to multiple stories and novels that made him one of the main exponents of the writers of his time, known as the Generation of 50.
His works, focused on problems of the Puerto Rican, especially the immigrant, were awarded multiple awards. The most prominent among them is the Casa de las Américas Novel Prize, awarded in 1982 for her work A Dark Smiling People.
Pedro Juan Soto began his career as a writer in New York.
Before dedicating herself to writing, Soto came to consider medicine as a profession and in fact entered the premedical course at the beginning of her university studies. However, he dropped out to get a degree in Arts.
Biography
Early years
He was born in Puerto Rico, specifically in Cataño, on July 2, 1928 under the home of Alfonso Soto and Helena Suárez, his parents. He grew up in the place where he and his mother were born, where he studied primary school. Later, he completed secondary studies at the Bayamón school.
From a very young age, Pedro Juan Soto showed a penchant for the humanities. In 1946 he moved to New York where this was confirmed when, at the age of 18, he decided to change his studies in Medicine for Art at Long Island University.
In 1950 he completed his career, graduating as a Bachelor of Arts. He entered the United States Army voluntarily, however, at the end of the first year, he decided to withdraw from military life. He returned to the classroom and in 1953 he earned a Master of Arts from Columbia University.
Return to Puerto Rico
After completing his stage as a student, he returned to his homeland in 1955 to join the Community Education Division (DIVEDCO), a unit of the Department of Public Instruction created in 1949 dedicated to the expansion of educational initiatives in Puerto Rico through the art.
His studies allowed him to stand out in his position at the publishing house for approximately ten years. He also obtained a position as a professor of literature at the higher level at the University of Puerto Rico, from which he later retired. He returned to Puerto Rico mastering English.
He married the writer Carmen Lugo Filippi, who shared with him having completed a master's degree at Columbia (she in French Literature), as well as a doctorate at the University of Toulouse, in France. Soto in Hispano-American Literature and Lugo in Comparative Literature.
Additionally, she helped him raise his children: Roberto, Juan Manuel and Carlos. The latter, part of a group of pro-independence activists, died in 1978. Her murder was part of a police ambush known as the Cerro Maravilla Case. This fact marked her, due to the violence of the end of her son and the injustice that Soto perceived in what happened.
Death
On November 7, 2002, at the age of 74, Pedro Juan Soto passed away in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The writer entered the Hospital Auxilio Mutuo de Rio Piedras due to a respiratory failure that was terminal.
Style
From a very young age, as a seller of lottery tickets, Soto found it necessary to listen and create stories to convince his potential buyers. This was one of the events that marked him as a writer, as it taught him that his writing would be based on events in his environment.
Since his stay in New York, he began his career as a writer, collaborating with multiple magazines. His stay there served as the main influence on his literature, with the theme of the Puerto Rican immigrant on New York soil being recurrent, with his social problems.
However, he also addressed other problems in Puerto Rico, such as the life of the faculty at his university, the participation of the Puerto Rican in the Korean War or the reality of the occupation of the US Navy on land dedicated to cultivation.
His way of writing is direct, sometimes crude, with a certain irony. She is not carried away by gimmicks typical of poetry, highlighting a language based on the concrete and not on the imaginative. She nurtured her creations using the popular way of speaking of Puerto Rico in the dialogues.
The focus of his writings is the urban, the city, where most of the events take place, whether in Puerto Rico, New York or Cuba. But it is the internal of the character that stands out in her narrative, which is why the dialogues do not stand out but the deep descriptions.
Plays
Despite his position at DIVEDCO and as a teacher, he did not stop taking time to write. He ventured into multiple genres such as the short story, the novel and the theater. Together with his wife, he writes a work published in 1990.
His first work within the field of narrative was written while in New York, a story entitled Los Anonymous Dogs that he published in the magazine Asonante, with which he collaborated on several occasions later. She dedicated herself to the short story genre until 1959, when she gave birth to the first of her novels.
Between 1953 and 1955 he was awarded an award at the Puerto Rican Athenaeum Contest. The first two for his short stories Garabatos and Los Inocentes, the last for his play The Guest. In 1960 he won this award again for his novel Burning ground, cold season.
In 1959 he was awarded the Puerto Rican Literature Institute award for his novel Usmail, however, Soto rejected it. Finally, in 1982 he received the Casa de las Américas Novel Prize, with A Dark Smiling People.
Some of his works were:
Stories
Spiks (1956).
The new life (1966).
A saying of violence (1976).
Novels
Usmail (1959).
Burning ground, cold season (1961).
The sniper (1969).
Goblin Season (1970).
The guest, the masks and other costumes (1973).
A dark smiling town (1982).
The distant shadow (1999).
Theater
The Guest (1955).
The masks (1958).
Others
Alone with Pedro Juan Soto (1973).
In search of José L. De Diego (1990).
Memories of my amnesia (1991).
References
- Almeyda-Loucil, Javier. "Division of Community Education / CommunityEducation Program in Puerto Rico (1954?)", Virtual Library of Puerto Rico, 2015.
- Di Núbila, Carlos & Rodríguez, Carmen. "Puerto Rico: society, culture and education", Puerto Rico, Editorial Isla Negra, 2003.
- González, José Luis. Literature and Society in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1976.
- López-Baralt, Mercedes. "Puerto Rican Literature of the 20th Century: Anthology", Puerto Rico, Editorial of the University of Puerto Rico, 2004.
- Rivera de Alvarez, Josefina. Puerto Rican Literature: Its Process in Time. Madrid, Partenón Editions, 1983.
- Martínez Torre, Ewin. Cerro Maravilla Archive, Online Database, 2000.