2024-10-15 13:51:00
Renowned Chilean writer Antonio Skármeta, one of the greatest exponents of Latin American literature, has died at the age of 83, the University of Chile, his alma mater, said Tuesday. Skármeta, winner of the Planeta Prize in 2003 for the ‘Dance of Victory’, is known to the general public for the film adaptations of his works, and in particular for the film ‘Il Postino’ or ‘Neruda’s Postman’.
The death of the narrator, translated into more than thirty languages and adapted for cinema, ambassador to Germany and television host, was announced by the University of Chile, his place of study, and subsequently confirmed by the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric. “Thank you teacher for the life you lived. For short stories, novels and theatre. For political commitment. For the book exhibition that expanded the boundaries of literature. For dreaming that the snow was burning in Chile that hurt you so much,” the president said in his X account.
Belonging to the generation of writers of the 60s, Skármeta (Antofagasta, 1940) is, together with Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda and Isabel Allende, one of the most recognized writers of Chilean literature, with three of his books transferred to the big screen: ‘ Patience ardente’ (in cinema known as ‘Neruda’s Postman’); ‘The Dance of Victory’, Planeta Award 2003; and ‘The Plebiscite’.
Although he studied philosophy at the University of Chile, one of the most prestigious in the country, his interest and vocation for literature made him a prolific author of national and international recognition who has cultivated different genres, from short stories and novels to operas plays, operas and children’s books. In 2014 he was awarded the 2014 Chilean National Literature Prize.
“It is a very great gratitude, I have received other relevant international prizes, but I believe the National Literature Prize confirms the great and intimate relationship I have with Chile, its history, the historical alternatives, the characters, the most vulnerable people. , to which I dedicated myself in my work and to its artists, poets,” Skármerta later told the local Radio Cooperativa.
Of Croatian origins, he was 33 years old when the coup d’état occurred that put an end to the democratic and progressive government of the socialist Salvador Allende, and the young writer, a left-wing militant linked to the Popular and Unitary Action Movement (MAPU), of student origins and farmer, he went into exile first in Argentina and then in Germany, where he settled.
In Berlin he developed his passion for the seventh art, worked as a professor at the German Film and Television Academy, was the director of two films, an actor in several films and the author of dozens of screenplays, many of which were directed by Germans Pietro Lilienthal.
The writer, who after the return to democracy and under the government of the socialist Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) became ambassador to Germany, never held back in showing his ideas, as in his first novel ‘I dreamed that the snow was burning ‘. (1975), in which he praises the socialist Chile of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) or ‘Insurrection’ (1982), a book in which he deals with the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. In the world of television, the novelist presented the program “The Book Show” for a decade, awarded with numerous awards.
Among his numerous awards, the Planeta Award also stands out for ‘El Baile de la Victoria’, based in 2009 on a film, his great passion, by the Spanish director Fernando Trueba. And Skármeta, who wrote his first doctoral thesis on the Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset, had the soul of a philosopher, the pen of a storyteller and a passion for cinema, but it was a “postman” who brought him to the altars of Latin American literature and world fame.
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