Manuel Zapata Olivella

Manuel Zapata Olivella (Santa Cruz of Lorica, Córdoba, 17 March 1920 – Bogota, 19 November 2004) was a doctor, anthropologist and Colombian writer.

Biography

When he was a boy, his father, the professor Antonio María Zapata Vásquez, moved with his family to Cartagena de Indias. Zapata Olivella's younger sister, Delia Zapata Olivella, is a Colombian dancer and folklorist.^[1]

He studied Medicine in the National University of Colombia, in Bogota. In Mexico City, he worked in the Psychiatric Sanatorium of the Dr. Ramírez and afterwards in the Hospital Ortopédico of Alfonso Ortiz Thrown, for the magazine Time and for the magazine Events for All. It argued against his brother Virgil defending to the United States, changing of way to think after a trip to this country where suffered racial discrimination.

During his stay in Mexico, he wrote the unpublished novel "Bitter Rice". He published several studies on the cultures of the blacks of Colombia. He taught in several universities of United States, Canada, Central America, and Africa. He founded and directed the literary magazine National Letters.

The main theme of his narrative is the history and the culture of the inhabitants of the Colombian Caribbean, especially the lives of blacks and natives. His more important work is the novel Changó (1983), an extensive work that is presented as an epic of the afroamericanos, narrating their origins in Africa.^[2]

His previous novel In Chimá is born a saint (1964) was a finalist in two contests, the Esso of 1963, in which it was defeated by Gabriel García Márquez with The bad hour, and the Prize of Brief Novel Seix Barral, in which first place went to The city and the dogs by Mario Vargas Llosa.

Works

Novels

• 1947 - Tierra mojada
• 1960 - La calle 10
• 1963 - Detrás del rostro
• 1963 - Chambacú, corral de negros, mención en el Premio Casa de las Américas, 1963
• 1964 - En Chimá nace un santo
• 1983 - Changó, el Gran Putas 1983 - Historia de un Joven Negro

Short stories

• 1948 - "Pasión vagabunda"
• 1952 - "He visto la noche"
• 1954 - "China 6 a.m."
• 1961 - "Cuentos de muerte y libertad"
• 1962 - "El cirujano de la selva"
• 1967 - "¿Quién dio el fusil a Oswald?"
• 2003 - "Fábulas de Tamalameque: los animales hablan"

Essays

• 1997 - "La rebelión de los genes"

Works in English

• Chambacu, Black Slum, translator Jonathan Tittler, Latin American Literary Review Press, 1989, ISBN 9780935480399
• Changó, the Biggest Badass, translator Jonathan Tittler, Texas Tech University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780896726734
• A Saint Is Born in Chima: A Novel. translator Thomas E. Kooreman. University of Texas Press. 1 May 2013. pp. 6–. ISBN 978-0-292-75363-1.

See also

• Literature of Colombia

References

1. Appiah, Kwame Anthony (2005). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press. p. 605. ISBN 9780195170559. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
2. Luca. "Manuel Zapata Olivella y la afrocolombianidad - Aurora Boreal". www.auroraboreal.net. Retrieved 2015-10-02.

External links

• Colombian oral history archive, Manuel Zapata Olivella Collection of Vanderbilt University Special Collections

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Spanish Wikipedia.