author
Rufino Blanco-Fombona
1874–1944
A fiery Venezuelan writer, editor, and political exile, he helped bring Latin American literature to a wider international audience. His life mixed poetry, novels, journalism, and public battles with dictatorship.
1 Audiobook
Cuentos de poeta
by Rufino Blanco-Fombona
About the author
Born in Caracas in 1874, Rufino Blanco-Fombona became one of the best-known Venezuelan men of letters of his era. He wrote poetry, novels, essays, and literary history, and he is often linked with the modernista movement in Spanish-language literature.
His career was shaped as much by politics as by books. After clashing with the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, he was imprisoned and later lived in exile in Europe, where he continued writing and took on an important role as an editor and publisher. Through that work, he helped promote Latin American authors beyond their home countries.
Blanco-Fombona died in Buenos Aires in 1944. Today he is remembered not only for his own energetic, combative writing, but also for the part he played in giving Latin American literature a stronger presence in the wider Spanish-speaking world and beyond.