Shimose, Pedro (1940–)

Pedro Shimose (b. 1940), Bolivian poet. Shimose also sketches and composes popular music. Born in Riberalta del Beni, Bolivia, to Japanese immigrants, Shimose received a degree in communication sciences from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. He worked as columnist and editor for the daily Presencia of La Paz and later taught literature at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz. In the early 1990s he was working at the Institute of Spanish-American Cooperation in Madrid. His poetry has received various prizes: Bolivia's National Poetry Prize in 1960 and 1966, Cuba's House of the Americas Prize in 1972, and Spain's Olive Prize in 1974 and Leopoldo Panero Prize in 1975.

Shimose's early poetry (Triludio del exilio [1961], Sardonia [1967], Poemas para un pueblo [1968], and Quiero escribir, pero me sale espuma [1972]) is characterized by a humanist social commitment of a myth-ico-religious nature, which evolves into a definitive denunciation of those who perpetuate the conditions causing misery and pain in Latin America. In Caducidad del fuego (1975), Al pie de la letra (1976), Reflexiones maquiavélicas (1980), and Poemas (1988), the tone changes. The violence is transformed into a bitter irony mixed with tenderness and humor. Shimose also published a book of stories, El Coco se llama Drilo (1976), and Diccionario de autores iberoamericanos (1982) He is a member of the Bolivian Academy of Language and the Spanish Association of Art Critics. In 1996 his Riberalta y otros poemas appeared, the first work of his published in Bolivia since 1971. In 2000 he received the National Culture Prize of Bolivia, and in subsequent years he directed the poetry collection of the Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana in Madrid.

See alsoAsians in Latin America, Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ortega, José. Letras bolivianas de hoy: Renato Prada y Pedro Shimose (1973).

Salgado, María Antonia. Modern Spanish American Poets: First Series. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 2003.

                                       Silvia M. Nagy