Chilean writer Jorge Edwards. MARTIN BERNETTI / –
The writer, winner of the 1999 Cervantes Prize, author of the bestseller unwanted person in which he tells of his disappointment at the Cuban revolution, died on Friday March 17 in Madrid.
The announcement was made by his son: On Friday, March 17, the writer Jorge Edwards died in Madrid at the age of 91. “Leaves us an extraordinary novelist, a courageous essayist and a journalist who is aware of all layers of contemporary affairs. We will miss his vitality and moral stature.”wrote the Cervantes Institute, from which he received the prize in 1999.
Jorge Edwards, born in Santiago in 1931, graduated from the Law School of the University of Chile and completed postgraduate studies at Princeton University in the United States. He served in Chilean diplomacy from 1957 to 1973 until Augusto Pinochet’s military coup (1973-1990) in Paris, Lima and on a mission that will leave a deep impression on him: Havana. Jorge Edwards spent three months in the Cuban capital in 1971 to open the Chilean embassy on behalf of Salvador Allende’s socialist government (1970-73), one of the first to restore diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s regime. His dual role as diplomat and writer allows him to come into contact with writers on the island who give him a different perspective than the official version.
Ambassador in France
Jorge Edwards was never officially expelled, but he left Cuba ahead of schedule for Paris, where he reunited with his friend Pablo Neruda, then Ambassador to France. From this time in Cuba he learned something new “distinguish between appearances, outward gestures, formal speeches and realities”, he admitted in 2018. In 1973 he moved to Barcelona, where he came into contact with other Latin American writers living there, such as Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa. Appointed Unesco Ambassador in Paris in 1994, he received the Cervantes Prize five years later.
His last post as a diplomat at the Chilean Embassy in France was in Paris from 2010 to 2014, during the first term in office of conservative Chilean President Sebastian Piñera. Jorge Edwards has written numerous novels, short stories, essays and autobiographical works. He has also collaborated with European and Latin American media such as the daily newspaper The world In France, The country in Spain, The Corriere della Sera in Italy the Argentine newspapers The nation etc clarinetas well as the Mexican magazine Free letters.
