THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

Appendix B: Enrique Jaramillo Levi:Un hombre de letrasAppendix B: Enrique Jaramillo Levi: Un hombre de letrasEscribir es darle vida a la muerte, a la nada.iiiEnrique Jaramillo Levi“Me considero, en el mejor sentido renacentista, un ‘hombre deletras’” announces writer Enrique Jaramillo Levi in his revealing essay“Autorreflexión y Epifanía de la Escritura”. 1 He is an author of manyfirsts among others the first to publish widely outside of Panama, andthe first to publish with international publishing houses. Arguably themost prolific and well-known Central American writer today, he hasinfluenced and immersed himself in every facet of Panamanian writing.In fact, Jaramillo Levi’s most recent website states he is the most cited,reviewed, and internationally studied Panamanian author who haspublished the greatest number of works ranging from poems to prose,essays to articles for whose production, publication, and promotion hehas toiled tirelessly. 2He was born in Colón, Panama in 1944 and graduated from theUniversity of Panama in 1967 with an Arts Degree specialising inEnglish. The author of over fifty books and an ever-increasing numberof short stories, poems, essays, and articles, Jaramillo Levi has residedand taught in Panama, Mexico and the United States. He has beenawarded three international scholarships; the first by the Latin AmericanScholarship Program of American Universities, resulting in his MastersDegree of Creative Writing at the University of Iowa in 1969. Hereceived a Masters in Latin American Letters a year later. In 1971, hewon his second scholarship sponsored by the Centro Mexicano deEscritores and La Fundación Ford for the unpublished manuscript “Elbúho que dejó de latir”, which consisted of a one-year residence inMexico City and weekly attendance at a literary workshop organised byJuan Rulfo, Salvador Elizondo and Francisco Monterde. 3 The objectivewas to write a short story collection and after extending his scholarshipfor an extra year (1970-1972), the literary result was the seminal (andsince then, four-times published), Duplicaciones. 4 This period is themost significant of his professional life: “Ese taller fue fundamental parami formación. El rigor, la dura crítica constructiva, me ayudó a corregir1 Jaramillo Levi, “Autorreflexión y Epifanía de la Escritura” 4202 Enrique Jaramillo Levi, 28 Aug. 2008. .3 The manuscript was published three years later as El búho que dejó de latir (México:Editorial Sano, 1974).4 The first edition of Duplicaciones was published in Mexico in 1973 (Editorial JoaquínMortiz); in 1982, the second Mexican edition (Editorial Katún) was revised and fivepreviously published stories were added; the third was published in Madrid (EditorialOrígenes, 1990); and the fourth and most recent is also a Spanish edition (Barcelona,Editorial Casiopea, 2001).