Hernando Urriago Benítez

Hernando Urriago Benítez is a poet and essay writer who was born in Cali, Colombia in 1974. He studied literature in Universidad del Valle and a Magister in Colombian and Latin American literature. His grading thesis was about essay writer Baldomero Sanín Cano. Urriago Benítez won the National Poetry Prize in 1999 and published his book Esplendor de la Ceniza (Cinder's splendor) in 2003. In 2006, he published his first essay book, Caligrafías del Asombro. His second book, El Signo del Centauro (The sign of the centaur), was published in 2007. In 2008 he and fellow author Fabio Martínez compilated several writers from Valle del Cauca, Colombia, in a bilingual book called "Cali-grafías, la ciudad literaria", collecting authors like Jorge Isaacs, Andrés Caicedo and José Eustaquio Palacios. He currently works in Universidad del Valle with other writers like Carlos Patiño Millán, Fabio Martínez and Oscar Perdomo Gamboa.