Dobles Segreda, Luis (1891–1956)

A Costa Rican educator, writer, and diplomat, Dobles Segreda was born on January 17, 1891, in Heredia. He attended the Liceo de Costa Rica, where he was mentored by the noted intellectual Joaquín García Monge. In 1910 he began writing articles for the Havana Post and founded, with others, the journal Selenia. In 1917 he became the director of the Normal School in Heredia, where he also received graduate degrees in geography, philology, and literature. In 1927 he taught in the United States at Marquette University and at the Louisiana State Normal College. He was Costa Rica's minister of education (1926–1928; 1930–1932, 1936) and later served as minister plenipotentiary in Chile, Argentina, Spain, France, Belgium, and the Vatican.

Dobles Segreda wrote fifteen books about Costa Rica, among them Historia y tradiciones (1920), Caña brava (1926) and his twelve-volume Indice bibliográfico de Costa Rica (1927–1935). The Library of Congress purchased his comprehensive collection of books about Costa Rica in 1943 and microfilmed it in 1995. Dobles Segreda served in Costa Rica's constitutional convention on 1948 and in 1950 again represented his country in Spain. A member of the Costa Rican Academy of Language, he was also awarded the Order of Isabel la Católica (Spain) and France's Legion of Honor. Dobles Segreda died in Heredia on October 27, 1956.

See alsoCosta Rica .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cordero, Abdenago. Luis Dobles Segreda. San José, Costa Rica: Instituto del Libro, Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes, 1985.

                           Georgette Magassy Dorn