GARCÍA PONCE, Juan 1932-2003 (Jorge Olmo)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 22, 1932, in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico; died of complications from multiple sclerosis, December 27, 2003, in Mexico City, Mexico. Critic, editor, and author. García Ponce was a prominent critic and award-winning author of novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and literary criticism, some of his criticism being written under the pen name Jorge Olmo. He studied drama at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras in Mexico City and, from 1957 to 1958, at the Centro Mexicano de Escritores, after which he earned his living through a combination of writing and working as an editor and art and literary critic for such periodicals as Vuelta and Universidad de México; he was also director of Revista Mexicana de Literatura. García Ponce was a prolific author, and some of his most lauded works include El Canto de los grillos, obras en tres actos (1957), Imagen primera (1963), La Noche (1963), Figura de paja (1964), and La Casa en la playa (1966). More recent works include Aparaciones (1987), Pasada presente (1993), Novelas breves (1997), and Huellas de la voz: Imagenes plasticas (2000). For his contributions to Mexican literature, García Ponce received several prestigious honors, including the Premio Ciudad de México in 1956 for the novel El Canto de los grillos, the Elías Souraski Award of the Arts and the Cruz de Honor de Primera Clase para Ciencias y Artes, both in 1977, and, most recently, the Premio Juan Rulfo para Primera Novela award from the National Council for the Culture and Arts of Mexico in 2001.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, December 29, 2003, section 1, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2004, p. B10.

Washington Post, January 1, 2004, p. B5.