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Alfonso Reyes
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Alfonso Reyes
Alfonso Reyes Ochoa (17 May 1889 – 27 December 1959) was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest authors in the Spanish language. He served as ambassador of Mexico to Argentina and Brazil.
Born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Alfonso Reyes was the ninth of the twelve children of General Bernardo Reyes Ogazón, Governor of Nuevo León and Secretary of War and Navy under President Porfirio Díaz (considered by some to be his natural successor), and his wife Aurelia Ochoa-Garibay y Sapién, a member of a prominent family from Jalisco, direct descendants of Conquistador Diego de Ochoa-Garibay, as documented by Reyes in his Parentalia.
Reyes was educated at various colleges in Monterrey, the Liceo Francés de México, the Colegio Civil de Monterrey, and later at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Jurisprudencia, which later became the law school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1913.
In 1909, he helped to found the Ateneo de la Juventud, along with other young intellectuals including Martín Luis Guzmán, José Vasconcelos, Julio Torri, and Pedro Henríquez Ureña, to promote new cultural and aesthetic ideals and educational reform in Mexico. In 1911, Reyes published his first book, Cuestiones estéticas. The following year, he wrote the short story La Cena ("The Supper"), which is considered a forerunner of surrealism and Latin American magical realism. In that year he was also named Secretary of the Escuela Nacional de Altos Estudios at the National University.
Reyes obtained his law degree in 1913, the same year that his father died while participating in an coup d'état against President Francisco I. Madero.
Alfonso Reyes was posted to Mexico's diplomatic service in France in 1913. After Germany invaded France in 1914, he moved to Madrid, Spain, and pursued a literary career as journalist, investigator, translator, critic, and writer. In 1915, he wrote what is probably his best-known essay, Visión de Anáhuac (1519) with its famous epigraph, "Viajero: has llegado a la región más transparente del aire", the source of the title of Carlos Fuentes's novel La región más transparente (1958). Visión de Anáhuac is inspired by the "vitalist" philosophy of Henri Bergson and can be seen as a study on the metamorphosis in the process of creative evolution.
Reyes was reinstated in the diplomatic service in 1920. He was the second secretary in Spain in 1920, was in Paris from 1924 to 1927, and then served as the ambassador to Argentina (1927–1930 and 1936–1937). He was the Mexican ambassador to Brazil from 1930 to 1935 and again in 1938. In 1939, he retired from the diplomatic corps and returned to Mexico, where he organized what is today El Colegio de México and dedicated himself to writing and teaching. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1950.
His time in Spain, from 1914 to 1924, is regarded as his most productive creative period, during which he developed as a writer and refined his literary skills.
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Alfonso Reyes
Alfonso Reyes Ochoa (17 May 1889 – 27 December 1959) was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest authors in the Spanish language. He served as ambassador of Mexico to Argentina and Brazil.
Born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Alfonso Reyes was the ninth of the twelve children of General Bernardo Reyes Ogazón, Governor of Nuevo León and Secretary of War and Navy under President Porfirio Díaz (considered by some to be his natural successor), and his wife Aurelia Ochoa-Garibay y Sapién, a member of a prominent family from Jalisco, direct descendants of Conquistador Diego de Ochoa-Garibay, as documented by Reyes in his Parentalia.
Reyes was educated at various colleges in Monterrey, the Liceo Francés de México, the Colegio Civil de Monterrey, and later at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Jurisprudencia, which later became the law school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1913.
In 1909, he helped to found the Ateneo de la Juventud, along with other young intellectuals including Martín Luis Guzmán, José Vasconcelos, Julio Torri, and Pedro Henríquez Ureña, to promote new cultural and aesthetic ideals and educational reform in Mexico. In 1911, Reyes published his first book, Cuestiones estéticas. The following year, he wrote the short story La Cena ("The Supper"), which is considered a forerunner of surrealism and Latin American magical realism. In that year he was also named Secretary of the Escuela Nacional de Altos Estudios at the National University.
Reyes obtained his law degree in 1913, the same year that his father died while participating in an coup d'état against President Francisco I. Madero.
Alfonso Reyes was posted to Mexico's diplomatic service in France in 1913. After Germany invaded France in 1914, he moved to Madrid, Spain, and pursued a literary career as journalist, investigator, translator, critic, and writer. In 1915, he wrote what is probably his best-known essay, Visión de Anáhuac (1519) with its famous epigraph, "Viajero: has llegado a la región más transparente del aire", the source of the title of Carlos Fuentes's novel La región más transparente (1958). Visión de Anáhuac is inspired by the "vitalist" philosophy of Henri Bergson and can be seen as a study on the metamorphosis in the process of creative evolution.
Reyes was reinstated in the diplomatic service in 1920. He was the second secretary in Spain in 1920, was in Paris from 1924 to 1927, and then served as the ambassador to Argentina (1927–1930 and 1936–1937). He was the Mexican ambassador to Brazil from 1930 to 1935 and again in 1938. In 1939, he retired from the diplomatic corps and returned to Mexico, where he organized what is today El Colegio de México and dedicated himself to writing and teaching. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1950.
His time in Spain, from 1914 to 1924, is regarded as his most productive creative period, during which he developed as a writer and refined his literary skills.
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