Samayoa Chinchilla, Carlos (1898–1973)

Carlos Samayoa Chinchilla (b. 10 December 1898; d. 14 February 1973), Guatemalan writer. A member of the same generation as Miguel Ángel Asturias and Luis Cardoza y Aragón, he is especially famous for his nativist short stories collected in Madre Milpa (1934).

Born in Guatemala City, the son of wealthy landowners, Samayoa traveled extensively throughout Europe in the 1920s. Forced to return to his native country after the stock market crash of 1929, he served as a minor bureaucrat in the Jorge Ubico administration (1931–1944). While traveling with the dictator throughout the country, he developed his ideas for Madre Milpa. The Ubico dictatorship collapsed in 1944, and Samayoa published a book of memoirs about his experience working with the most feared man in the country, El dictador y yo (1945). During the 1940s he was director of the National Library and was active in founding several museums. As the new democratic administration became more liberal, Monterroso became a bitter critic of its progressive tendencies and joined in red-baiting the Arbenz government (1951–1954). In his later years he published books of short stories, but none were as accomplished as his original success. Other books by Samayoa are Cuatro suertes (1936); Estampas de la costa grande (1954); El quetzal no es rojo (1956); and Chapines de ayer (1957).

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco Albizúrez Palma and Catalina Barrios y Barrios, Historia de la literatura guatemalteca, vol. 3 (1987), pp. 38-52.

Additional Bibliography

Barraza Arriola, Marco Antonio. Antología de escritores del istmo centroamericano. San Tecla: Clásicos Roxsil, 2003.

                                                Arturo Arias