Candanedo, César (1906–1993)

César Candanedo (b. 12 May 1906; d. 29 March 1993), Panamanian writer. Candanedo was born in David, Panama. Self-taught, he was awarded a scholarship by the World Health Organization to pursue studies in the School of Public Health of the University of Chile. After completing his studies, he worked as a public health inspector for the Department of Public Health in Panama. This position gave him the opportunity to travel and to become familiar with the diverse regions of the country and, in particular, to become aware of the hopelessness that permeates every aspect of the daily existence of Panama's rural population.

In his first book, Los clandestinos (1957; The Clandestine Ones), he depicted the impact of the United Fruit Company and the Canal Zone on the living conditions of Panama's rural population. His later works, La otra frontera (1967; The Other Frontier), El cerquero y otros relatos (1967; The Encloser and Other Stories), Memorias de un caminante (1970; Memories of a Traveler), Palo duro (1973; Hard Truncheon), and El perseguido (1991; The Fugitive) reaffirmed his reputation as both a writer of vigorous works of social protest and a writer of regional literature. El perseguido received first prize in the 1986 Ricardo Mirõ competition.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Elsie Alvarado De Ricrod, "Reseña de Los clandestinos de César Candanedo," in El Panamá América (1958).

Carlos Guillermo Wilson, Aspectos de la prosa narrativa panameañ contemporánea (Ph.D. thesis, 1987), pp. 108-110.

David Foster, comp., Handbook of Latin American Literature, 2d ed. (1992), pp. 463-464.

Additional Bibliography

Pilolli, Mariapia. Sociología de la literature panameña. Panamá: Universidad de Panamá Centro de Investigaciones, 1984.

                              Elba D. Birmingham-Pokorny