Charry Lara, Fernando (1920–2004)

Fernando Charry Lara (b. 1920), Colombian poet, born in Bogotá. His love poetry is erotic and characterized by a sense of mystery inspired by the night. Charry Lara's importance lies in his occupying a transitional position between the poets of the Piedra y Cielo group and those of the Mito group, which is known for its universalist poetry. The members of Piedra y Cielo, following the style of Spanish poetry, concentrated on purity of forms, whereas the members of Mito, influenced by existentialism, worried less about form and meditated on reality, love, and poetry itself. Charry Lara became famous with the publication of his first poems in 1944 in the poetry magazine Cántico. In the 1950s he was a part of the Mito group, whose magazine is notable for its criticism of the Colombian literary and social situation. Charry Lara's poetry collections are Nocturnos y otros sueños (1949), Los adioses (1963), Pensamientos del amante (1981) and Llama de amor viva (1986,) which is considered by many to be his master work. Of the Mito group members, Charry Lara contributed the most to the criticism of Colombian poetry with his essay collection Lector de poesía (1975). His poetry was influenced by such Spanish poets as Vicente Aleixandre, by Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges, and by the German Romantic poets. In 2000, he won the José Ausunción Silva National Poetry Prize in Colombia, and in 2003 the National University of Antioquía awarded him the National Poetry Prize for his life's work. He died in the United States in 2004.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco Aguilera and Georgette Magassy Dorn, The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape (1974).

Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot, "Poesía y crítica literaria en Fernando Charry Lara," in Revista Iberoamericana 50 (1984): 839-852.

Armando Romero, "Fernando Charry Lara o la obsesión de la noche," in his Las palabras están en situación (1985), pp. 86-96.

Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda, Poesía colombiana 1880–1980 (1987), pp. 172-178.

Jaime García Maffla, Fernando Charry Lara (1989).

Additional Bibliography

Bonnett, Piedad. Imaginación y oficio: Conversaciones con séis poetas colombianos. Medellín, Colombia: Editorial Universidad de Antioquía, 2003.

García Maffla, Jaime. Fernando Charry Lara. Bogotá: Pro-cultura, 1989.

Serrano Serrano, Samuel. "Entrevista a Fernando Charry Lara." Cuadernos hispanoamericanos (Sep-Oct 2004): 651-652.

                                 Juan Carlos Galeano