Wyld Ospina, Carlos (1891–1956)

Carlos Wyld Ospina (b. 19 June 1891; d. 17 June 1956), Guatemalan writer and journalist, member of the influential Generation of 1920. Wyld was born in Antigua to wealthy parents, Guillermo Wyld and Soledad Ospina. Largely self-taught, he began to write romantic poetry at an early age. As a novelist he is regarded as a chief exponent of criollismo, a literary movement devoted to denouncing social evils and to promoting national regeneration. Among his most notable works in this vein are El solar de los Gonzaga (1924; Ancestral Home) and La gringa (1935). In his short stories, such as "La tierra de las Nahuyacas" (1933; "The Land of the Nahuyacas"), he was among the first to depict realistically the wretched condition of the Indian majority, thus becoming a precursor of the Indigenista movement.

It was in Mexico that Wyld established himself as a journalist of note, becoming the editor of the paper El Independiente (1913–1914). Upon his return to Guatemala, he settled in Quetzaltenango, where he taught literature and worked as the editor of Diario de Los Altos. In 1920 he founded, in association with the writer Alberto Vásquez, El Pueblo, the organ of the Unionist Party in which he bitterly criticized the Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera. He also founded the cultural magazines Estudio (1922) and Semana (1939), and from 1922 to 1925 worked as the editor of the prominent newspaper El Imparcial. He married Amalia Cheves, a noted poet from Cobán. From 1937 to 1942, he served as deputy in the National Assembly. He died in Quetzaltenango while serving as director of the Bank of the West.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco Albizúrez Palma and Catalina Barrios y Barrios, Historia de la literatura guatemalteca, vol. 2 (1981), pp. 97-108.

Carlos C. Haeussler Yela, Diccionario general de Guatemala, vol. 3 (1983).

Additional Bibliography

Arias, Arturo. La identidad de la palabra: Narrativa guatemalteca del siglo veinte. Guatemala: Artemis & Edinter, 1998.

                                       Jorge H. GonzÁlez