Guillermo Valencia
# Guillermo Valencia

Guillermo Valencia Castillo (October 29, 1873 in Popayán, Colombia – July 8, 1943 in Popayán) was a Colombian poet, translator, and politician. Valencia was a pioneer of Modernism in Colombia and a member of the Colombian Conservative Party. He was the father of five children, including Guillermo León Valencia (1909–1971), Colombian president during 1962–1966, and Josefina Valencia Muñoz, Governor of Cauca.

## Biography

Valencia was the son of Joaquín Valencia Quijano and Adelaida Castillo Silva. He became an orphan at eight years old. He studied in Medellín.

### Literary career

His first volume of poetry, Ritos (1899, rev. ed. 1914; “Rites”), containing original poems and free translations from French, Italian, and Portuguese, established his literary reputation at home and abroad as a leader of the experimental Modernist movement with its exotic imagery.

He had the poetry magazine Paginas de Anarkos, considered a major journal associated with many Colombian literary figures of the time. It had illustrations by masters like Santiago Martinez Delgado.

He was never a prolific poet; in later years, he abandoned original poetry almost entirely, concentrating on translations. One of these was Catay (1928; “Cathay”), which he translated from Franz Toussaint's La Flute de Jade (“The Jade Flute”), a French translation of an anthology of Chinese poems. He translated La balada de la cárcel de Reading (1932; “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”) from the English poem by the 19th-century writer Oscar Wilde. He also turned more frequently to writing essays, many of which are collected in Panegíricos, discursos y artículos (1933; “Panegyrics, Speeches, and Articles”).

### Political career

He led an active career as a statesman and a diplomat and was twice a candidate for the presidency of Colombia, in 1918 and 1930. In 1918, he lost to Marco Fidel Suárez. In 1930, he lost the presidential election to liberal Enrique Olaya Herrera.

## Personal life

Valencia married Josefina Muñoz Muñoz in 1908. Together, they had five children.

He was the grandfather of Pedro Felipe Valencia López, a Colombian politician.

## Honors and awards

The house where he lived and died was turned into a museum. A municipal theater in Popayán, Colombia was also named after him. The national poetry prize in Colombia is named in his honor.

