Hérib Campos Cervera

Infobox Writer
name = Hérib Campos Cervera


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birthdate = birth date|1905|03|30|mf=y
birthplace = Asunción, Paraguay
deathdate = death date and age|1960|01|31|1905|03|30
deathplace = Asunción, Paraguay
occupation = Poet, short story writer, play writer
nationality = Paraguayan
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movement = Modernist literature
notableworks = Ceniza Redimida
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Hérib Campos Cervera was born in Asunción, Paraguay, on March 30 1905, son of Spanish parents, Herib Campos Cervera, also a poet, and of Alicia Diaz Perez, sister of the great intellectual Viriato Díaz Pérez.

Childhood and Youth

He was an intern at the Colegio San Jose de Asuncion, an institution he was to call “ a jail” more than once, which shows his vital and free spirit as a youth. Besides philosophy and math, he also dedicated himself to the literary critics and specially to poetry.

In the prologue of the second edition of “ Ceniza Redimida” the scholar Miguel Angel Fernandez writes: “ An unhappy childhood, far away from his parents, apparently marked his life, and in his poetry we may find the traces of this first stage of his life. His adolescence and youth were not more fortunate…”

His value as a poet is undeniable. All of the scholars on Paraguayan literature say that his work is the starting point of a new poetic conception joining the not always easy new path of vanguardism.

In his special book “ La poesia paraguaya- Historia de una incognita” the critical and intellectual Brazilian Walter Wey says: “ Campos Cervera put the paraguayan literature in the American rhythm and at the same level of the actual poetry of the continent. For that he didn't needto get into the heart of the Hispanic-American. He only did what was expected from his country: a deep study of the modern natives which stayed in the objective aspects of life and nature. He then moved to the social and human subjects deepening , taking advantage of the immense and unexplored folk stories. In this sense, he also opened the way to the new generations.

If he didn’t show completely the revelation of Paraguay as it was expected from his intuition, he did show how the future could be revealed. He also showed that in almost 100 years of poetry, the Paraguayan poets despite describing the county they didn’t identify with it and the life style.”

History

He was a collaborator of magazines such as “Juventud”, “Ideal” and “Alas” in the 20's, his production of the time is similar to the current of the postmodernism. He used to sign with the nickname of “Alfonso Monteverde”.In 1931, his participation in the acts of October 23, marked his first exile, first to Buenos Aires, Argentina and then to Montevideo, Uruguay. By then, he was clear in his ideas towards the left, maybe influenced by the anarchy and the Marxist socialists he contacted in Argentina and Uruguay.

In 1938, three years after his return toParaguay, together with Josefina Pla- who was also back from Europe after the death of her husband, Julian de la Herreria- he is located in the centre of a movement which has , among others, Augusto Roa Bastos, Oscar Ferreiro, Ezequiel Gonzalez Alsina and Hugo Rodriguez Alcala as members, who were later to be known as “ Generacion del 40” in the Paraguayan poetry. The meeting place of those young people was the “Vy’a raity”- soon Elvio Romero joined-and his productions are to be read in magazines such as the Ateneo Paraguayo, Noticias and the literary supplement of the newspaper “El Pais“.

In 1940, when the president of the republic , the general Jose Felix Estigarribia, dies in a dark aviation accident, the general Higinio Morinigo takes over . He was in the same political line of the national authoritarians of the neo-fascist Europe; his government will last until 1948. A year before, in 1947, one of the worst bloody civil war was to take place, which among many other consequences is to deprive the country from the talent and creativity of its best artists and intellectuals. Among them, Herib went into exile to Buenos Aires, until he dies.

Cesar Alonso de las Heras and [uan Manuel Marcos, wrote in a text for students of the Paraguayan contemporary literature:” Campos Cervera is the father of the Paraguayan literature. Even when in the narrative, the essays and the teathre he could fight for the first place with Casaccia, Barret and Correa, respectitevely, we cannot doubt his influence on the poetry. His poems…show for the first time in the country, the dominium of the surrealist methapors, the technics of Neruda, the rhythm of Nicolas Guillen, the nostalgic image of Alberti-to whom he dedicated his work” and they shall return one day”

The nostalgic and the hope, the verbal elegant and the spiritual transparency distinguish his very personal style, deeply rooted in the national circumstances of the poet…”.

Works

In 1950 he Published the only poem book when he was alive “Ceniza redimida”,which was a gathering of 28 magnificent poems of his best production.

“Hombre secreto” is the second poem book which was to appear after his death. Also the story “El buscador de fe”, the short novel “El ojo enterrado”, and the theatre play “Juan Hachero”, which was not taken to the stage and still inedited, as well as his novel “Hombres en la selva” and the poem book “Romancero del destierro”, which originals were taken during his exile in Montevideo.

Last Years

He was married to Tita de los Rios, and later divorced. He had children with Maria Carmen Palermo.He died in Buenos Aires, on August 28, 1953.

The journalist Humberto Perez Caceres, workmate of Herib in the newspaper “ Democracia” in Buenos Aires, transmitted his last words to his country :”The art, the politics, the cultural works, must drink the best of the nationality. The process has an itinerary form the national to the universal, not the opposite. Let it not be a useless art, not beauty divorced from the country. The country, his service, his redemption, its happiness, its justice must constitute the motivation of all work. The national…our country, our men, our countrymen, and workmen, our women. It is to them, to their elevation, that he artist must dedicate all of their efforts.”

References

* [http://www.cabildoccr.gov.py/index.php?pagina=vernovedades&idnovedad=4 Centro Cultural Cabildo]
* Diccionario Biográfico "FORJADORES DEL PARAGUAY", Primera Edicción Enero de 2000. Distribuidora Quevedo de Ediciones. Buenos Aires, Argentin
* EVP - Wikipedia
* [http://www.evp.edu.py/index.php?title=Portada Enciclopedia Virtual Paraguaya - Portal]

External links

* [http://eduardotejera.com/2007/08/07/poetry-of-the-americas-2006/ Poetry of the Americas]
* [http://www.palabravirtual.com/index.phpir=crit.php&wid=111&show=poemas&p=Herib+Campos+Cervera Antología poética]

Persondata
NAME=Cervera, Hérib Campos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Paraguayan poet
DATE OF BIRTH=March 30 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH=Asunción, Paraguay
DATE OF DEATH=January 31 1960
PLACE OF DEATH=