Enrique Lihn facts for kids
Enrique Lihn Carrasco (born September 3, 1929 – died July 10, 1988) was a famous Chilean writer. He was known for his poetry, but he also wrote many other things. Enrique Lihn created essays, short stories, novels, plays, and even comic books. He was also a literary critic and a cartoonist.
Contents
Biography
Early Life and Art
Enrique Lihn was born to Enrique Lihn Doll and María Carrasco Délano. He went to school at Saint George's College and Liceo Alemán in Santiago. From a young age, Enrique loved to read. He knew a lot about Spanish, French, and Latin American poetry.
When he was just 13, in 1942, he joined the School of Fine Arts at the University of Chile. He first wanted to study visual arts like painting. But later, he decided to become a writer instead.
Between 1949 and 1955, he published his first two poetry books. He also wrote about the work of another poet, Nicanor Parra. In 1952, Lihn worked with Nicanor Parra and others to create Quebrantahuesos. This was a special kind of art made from different pictures and texts called a collage.
Enrique Lihn had a daughter named Andrea with Ivette Mingram. Andrea later became an actress.
In 1963, Lihn published La pieza oscura (The Dark Room). He felt this poetry collection was his first important work. It was even translated into French and published in Paris. The famous artist Roberto Matta created the cover art for it.
Lihn was active in the Popular Action Front in Chile. He supported Salvador Allende in the presidential elections of 1958 and 1964.
Travels and Time in Cuba
In 1965, when he was 35, Lihn received a special scholarship from UNESCO. This allowed him to travel to different cities in Europe, including Paris, to study museology (how museums work). This was his first trip abroad and it was very important to him.
Even though he lost his travel notebook, his experiences inspired his book Poesía de paso. This book won the Casa de las Américas Prize in 1966.
Later in the 1960s, Lihn lived in Havana, Cuba, for two years. He worked at Casa de las Américas and wrote for the Granma newspaper. He also wrote art catalogs and edited a collection of works by Vicente Huidobro.
He became friends with important people like Roque Dalton and Heberto Padilla. Lihn learned a lot about Latin American literature and saw the Cuban Revolution firsthand. However, over time, he started to feel differently about it.
When he returned to Chile in the late 1960s, Lihn's feelings about Cuba changed. This was shown in his poetry books from 1969: Escrito en Cuba and La musiquilla de las pobres esferas. In 1970, he completely distanced himself from Cuba. This happened because he defended his friend Padilla, who was accused of something serious. This act meant Lihn could no longer visit Cuba easily. It took almost 30 years for his work to be published there again in 2009.
Back in Chile
With writer Germán Marín, Lihn started a magazine called Cormorán. It published eight issues between 1969 and 1970.
From 1970 to 1973, Lihn led a poetry workshop at the Catholic University of Chile. He also taught literature at the University of Chile. During this time, he met other artists and writers.
In 1973, Lihn's novel Batman en Chile was published in Argentina. But because of a big political change in Chile (the coup d'état), the book was not sold in his home country.
Two years later, Lihn visited France and then New York. This was his first time in the United States. He gave poetry readings at several universities, including Yale and Rutgers. While in France, he wrote París, situación irregular, which was published in Chile in 1977.
In 1976, his novel La orquesta de cristal was published. In 1980, his third long story, El arte de la palabra, came out in Spain. These two books featured characters named Gerardo de Pompier and Roberto Albornoz.
In 1978, Lihn received a special award called the Guggenheim Fellowship. This brought him back to New York for a few months. His poetry book A partir de Manhattan was published in Chile in 1979. He visited the United States many times after that, teaching at different universities.
Lihn also wrote and put on plays, like La radio and Las gallinas. In 1984, he created a performance called Adiós Tarzán, which made fun of the government at the time. In 1983, he was briefly arrested by the police for reading his poem El Paseo Ahumada on that very street in Santiago. Many of his works, like La aparición de la Virgen, were paid for by Lihn and his friends. They wanted to share art and ideas during a time when the government controlled culture.
Besides his own drawings for La aparición de la Virgen, Lihn worked on a comic book called Roma, la loba, which was never finished. He also drew pictures for other books.
Final Years and Legacy
Enrique Lihn passed away in Santiago, Chile, on July 10, 1988, after fighting cancer. He kept writing until his last days. His friends, Pedro Lastra and Adriana Valdés, published his book Diario de muerte (1989). They carefully put together the poems he had left behind. Lihn himself had chosen the title for this book.
He is buried in the Parque del Recuerdo Cemetery in Santiago, near his friend, the poet Stella Díaz Varín. After he died, many collections of his poems and other writings were published.
The novelist Jorge Edwards was inspired by Lihn. He created a character in his novel La casa de Dostoievsky (Dostoievsky's House) based on Enrique Lihn.
Also, a Chilean cartoonist named Liván created a comic book based on Lihn's work El Paseo Ahumada in 2014.
Style and Themes
In his poetry, Lihn often used verses that sounded more like everyday speech than very flowery language. He was clearly influenced by Nicanor Parra's style.
A literary critic named Juan Manuel Vial said that Lihn started a new way of writing. It mixed "lyricism (poetic feeling), everyday speech, essays, news, art opinions, antipoetry, and emotions." He began this style with his book Poesía de paso in 1966.
Lihn often wrote about a difficult childhood in his poems, which you can see in La pieza oscura (1963). Another important theme in his poetry was travel. He explored this in books like Poesía de paso, Escrito en Cuba, París, situación irregular, and A partir de Manhattan.
Besides poetry, Lihn also wrote short stories and novels. His three novels—Batman en Chile, La orquesta de cristal, and El arte de la palabra—were not always praised by critics in Chile. However, they were part of a new movement in Latin American writing. These books were experimental and different from the popular "literary boom" books of the 1970s and 1980s.
Essayist Héctor Libertella said that Lihn's work was part of a group of writers who challenged popular authors. They helped to refresh literature in Latin America. Lihn's writing style in his stories has been compared to authors like Reinaldo Arenas and Manuel Puig.
Among Lihn's influences, the poet Henri Michaux was very important. Lihn discovered Michaux's work during his visit to Paris in 1965.
Notable Works
Poems
- "The Dark Room"
- "Cemetery in Punta Arenas"
- "Six Poems of Loneliness"
- "Torture Chamber"
- "Of All Despondencies"
- "A Favourite Little Shrine"
- "Goodnight, Achilles"
Film
- Adiós a Tarzán, directed by Enrique Lihn & Pedro Pablo Celedón.
Novels
- "Batman in Chile"
- "The Crystal Orchestra"
- "The art of the word"
Works in English
- The Dark Room and Other Poems, translated by Jonathan Cohen, John Felstiner, and David Unger, 1978, New Directions
- Figures of Speech, translated by Dave Oliphant, 1999, Host Publications, Inc.
See also
In Spanish: Enrique Lihn para niños
