Henríquez Ureña, Max (1885–1968)

Max Henríquez Ureña (b. 16 November 1885; d. 23 January 1968), Dominican educator, writer, and diplomat. Henríquez Ureña, born in Santo Domingo, was the son of Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal, president of the Dominican Republic (1916), and the Dominican poetess and educator Salomé Ureña De Henríquez. After receiving a law doctorate in 1913, he began his public career in 1916, as secretary to his father. This appointment was followed by twenty years of diplomatic service as his country's representative in various European capitals, the League of Nations, and the United Nations. During the first year of Rafael L. Trujillo's reign (1930–1931), Henríquez Ureña was in charge of Dominican public education. Along with other Dominican intellectuals, he established the Dominican Academy of History. In Cuba, he founded the journals Cuba Literaria and Archipiélago. Henríquez Ureña contributed to important Hispanic magazines, such as El Cojo Ilustrado (Venezuela), Cuba Contemporánea and El Figaro (Cuba), and Caras y Caretas (Argentina). He taught at various universities in the Dominican Republic and abroad, including the Univer-sidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU). Henríquez Ureña's most famous literary work is Los Estados Unidos y la República Dominicana (published in Cuba in 1919), in which he denounced the armed intervention by the United States in the Dominican Republic during 1916. Another well-known work is Panorama histórico de la literatura dominicana, a survey of Dominican literature published in Rio de Janeiro in 1945. Henríquez Ureña died in Santo Domingo.

See alsoLeague of Nations; United Nations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Henríquez Ureña's writings include Cuentos insulares (1947); Breve historia del modernismo (1954); Garra de luz (1958); De Rimbaud a Pasternak y Quasimodo (1960); El retorno de los galeones, 2d ed., rev. and enlarged (1963); La independencia efímera, 3d ed. (1967); "Mi padre": Perfil biográfico de Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal (1988). See also Enciclopedia dominicana, vol. 3 (1978), p. 264.

Additional Bibliography

Fernández Pequeño, José M. En el espíritu de las islas: los tiempos posibles de Max Henríquez Ureña. Santo Domingo: Grupo Santillana, 2003.

                                   Kai P. Schoenhals