Rómulo Gallegos
Venezuela
Sweeping, descriptive prose that turns the llanos' geography and folklore into a moral battleground, nature itself charged with allegory.
Gallegos worked for years as a teacher and school principal in Caracas before turning to fiction, part of a generation of Venezuelan intellectuals convinced that education and literature could modernize a country still ruled by regional strongmen. Doña Bárbara, his novel of the Venezuelan plains, made him nationally famous on publication in 1929.
That fame carried him into politics: he was elected Venezuela's president in 1947 in the country's first direct, universal-suffrage election, only to be overthrown by a military coup after less than a year in office. He spent the following years in exile in Havana, Mexico City, and elsewhere before returning to Venezuela near the end of his life.
He died in Caracas in 1969, honored posthumously as much for his brief presidency as for his fiction.
Their books in the atlas
- 1929
Doña BárbaraLvl 4epic
Meanwhile, elsewhere
1879–1970E. M. ForsterEnglandWestern Europe · England
1885–1970François MauriacFranceWestern Europe · France
1878–1968Upton SinclairUnited StatesNorth America · United States
1887–1970S. Y. AgnonUkraine (Galicia) / IsraelMiddle East · Ukraine (Galicia) / Israel
1884–1964Halide Edip AdıvarTurkeyMiddle East · Turkey
1890–1979Jean RhysUnited Kingdom / DominicaWestern Europe · United Kingdom / DominicaIf you like Gallegos, try
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