Germán List Arzubide

Germán List Arzubide (born Puebla, Puebla, Mexico 31 May 1898 - died Mexico City 17 October or 19 October 1998) was a Mexican poet and revolutionary.

Although little known today, List Arzubide was a popular poet during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. He was an active participant in the Revolution, fighting alongside Emiliano Zapata as well as extolling him and other revolutionary leaders in his poetry. He was wounded and jailed three times, the first occasion providing the inspiration for his very first poem, a mocking caricature of his jailer. He wrote biographies of both Zapata ("Exaltacion", published in 1927) and another assassinated revolutionary leader Francisco Madero ("Madero, el Mexico de 1910", published in 1973). According to the poet James Kirkup who wrote an obituary of List upon his death: "The literary work of List and his contemporaries, both poets and novelists (including Martin Luis Guzman and Mariano Azuela), create the best picture of those passionate uprisings."

List Arzubide was one of the major figures of "estridentismo" (stridentism), an avant-garde poetry movement that was founded by Manuel Maples Arce in 1922 and which included other poets such as Luis Quintanilla and Salvador Gallardo. He also wrote a comprehensive account of the movement, titled "El movimiento estridentista" (1926).

He died in Puebla at the age of 100, one of the last survivors of the Revolution.

External links

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E7D9153CF935A15753C1A96E958260 New York Times obituary]
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19981103/ai_n14190021 Independent obituary by James Kirkup]
* [http://academiccommons.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:5238 Estridentismo in Mexico City : dialogues between Mexican avant-garde art and literature, 1921-1924. Columbia University PhD thesis by Tatiana Flores published in 2003]