Barrera, Isaac J. (1884–1970)

A journalist, literary critic, historian, and biographer, Isaac J. Barrera was a prodigious intellectual who dedicated himself to the study of the culture and history of Ecuador. As a journalist, he promoted the modernist movement in Ecuador through regular columns in El Comercio and by founding and directing the literary magazine Letras. As a biographer, he wrote several studies of prominent figures of Ecuador, including Vicente Rocafuerte, an important leader of Ecuador's independence movement. As a historian he wrote a study of colonial Quito, traced the history of journalism in Ecuador, offered a general account of the formation of the republic, and provided a synopsis of Ecuadoran historiography. Barrera is most widely recognized, however, for his Historia de la literatura ecuatoriana (1944). At the time the work was published, it represented a revision of Ecuadoran literary history. It grouped authors by genre and offered comparative analyses of their works, and also examined the literary theories behind them. According to Barrera's own understanding of literature, the Historia is not merely a literary history. As he indicates at the beginning of the work, it is a study of the intellectual history of a nation and gets at the true nature of the Ecuadoran people.

See alsoEcuador: Since 1830 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arias, Augusto. Panorama de la literatura ecuatoriana. Quito: Editorial LaSalle, 1961.

Sánchez Astudillo, Miguel. Barrera, Isaac J. Espécimen de letrado y de hombre. Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1964.

Thomas, Jack Ray. Biographical Dictionary of Latin American Historians and Historiography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984.

                                  Kenneth Atwood