Jorgenrique AdoumJorgenrique Adoum, widely-recognized as the most important Ecuadorian intellectual of the twentieth century, was an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright. During his lifetime, he published 14 books of poetry. Of Lebanese descent, he as born in the Andean town of Ambato in 1926. As a young man, he studied in Chile, where he became Pablo Neruda's personal secretary. He began publishing poetry in 1949. In 1960, he won the first ever Casa de las Américas prize in Cuba, soon to become the most prestigious literary prize in Latin America. He belonged to a pioneering and yet often overlooked group of Spanish American poets, which includes writers like Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua), Roque Dalton (El Salvador), and Juan Gelman (Argentina). Known as conversacionalistas, they emphasize the orality of language, as well as make use of the language of the social sciences and mass media. They innovate by challenging poetic limits, moving closer to popular culture, and requiring an active reader, one considered a co-author. Adoum spent much of the sixties, seventies, and eighties in exile, mainly in Paris, returning to Ecuador in 1987, where he continued to write. He died in Quito in 2009 and is buried at the Chapel of Man, the museum and cultural center created by his friend, the outstanding visual artist, Oswaldo Guayasamín. Read More Read Less