Manuel Ortiz Guerrero
Encyclopedia
Biography
Guerrero was born at Ybaroty, a neighborhood in the city of Villarrica del Espíritu Santo, ParaguayParaguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
. He was the son of Vicente Ortiz and Susana Guerrero, who died after giving birth. He was raised by his grandmother, Florencia Ortiz. He realized his first studies in a school in Villarrica
Villarrica
Villarrica may refer to:*Villarrica, Paraguay - a city in Southern Paraguay*Villarrica, Colombia - a municipality in the Tolima department of Colombia*Villarrica, Chile - a city in Chile*Lake Villarrica - a lake in Chile...
, characterized by his interest in scholar work.
He was shy and not very social. In Colegio Nacional de Villarrica he evolved as a poet, and developed his first verses. His classmates then started calling him Manú, nickname by which he would be immortalized.
He arrived in Asunción
Asunción
Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...
in 1914, where he studied in the Colegio Nacional de la Capital and gained a status of poet and leader of a whole generation.
He published his first poems in the Revista del Centro Estudiantil student centre magazine. Soon, local newspapers showed interest in him and allowed him popularity and audience. One of his best pieces, “Loca”, was published in the magazine Letras. He lived with his friend and also poet Guillermo Molinas Rolón.
In the 1920s he published poems such as “Surgente”, “Pepitas” y “Nubes del este” and plays like “Eireté”, “La conquista” y “El crimen de Tintalila”. He also wrote the lyrics in guarani for tha songs of his friend José Asunción Flores. Pieces like “India” and “Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
were written in Spanish.
Guerrero was exiled of the country and went to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. He died at Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina, in 1933, victim of the Hansen disease
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
. His ashes rest in his birth-city and in a centric plaza in Asunción by the name of “Manuel Ortiz Guerrero y José Asunción Flores”. Posthumous publications of his works include Obras completas (1952) and Arenillas de mi tierra (1969).
Work
Characterized by modernism, “Loca” is followed by other poems that have a rather romantic tang: “Raída poty”, “Guarán-i”, “La sortija”, “Diana de gloria”.He wrote indistinctively in Spanish and in Guaraní, succeeding admirably with poems in the second language, most of all, beautiful poems that serve as lyrics for the most important guaranias of José Asunción Flores
José Asunción Flores
José Asunción Flores was a Paraguayan composer and creator of the Guarania music genre.-Early life:Flores was born in the poor neighborhood of La Chacarita, in Asunción. As a kid, he had to work as a paperboy and shoeshiner in order to help his mother with food and other necessities...
: “Panambí verá”, “Nde rendape aju”, “Kerasy”y“Paraguaype”. In his book La poesía paraguaya - Historia de una incógnita, the Brazilian critic Walter Wey writes: “Ortiz Guerrero represented the great courage of being an intellectual in a country without editors, even that of living exclusively from art, since writing poems and playing the guitar were the only things he was good at.
He would print his poems in his own typing machine and sell them form door to door. He managed to get to the people in a way such that they were touched by the leproso, Towards the end of his existence, Manú received his last visitors and friends in the darkest corner of his miserable room, placing the chairs strategically distant from the bed so that they didn’t see him. The scars of this struggle with life and for life are reborn in some of his verses and in brochures tituled “Cantimplora”, which testify the painful path of the guarani poet.”