Guillermo Valencia Castillo

• Name — Guillermo Valencia • Birth Name — Guillermo Valencia Castillo • Born — 29 October 1873 • Birthplace — Popayán, Cauca, Colombia • Died — 8 July 1943 • Place of death — Popayán, Colombia • Spouse — Josefina Muñoz Muñoz • Occupation — Poet, translator • Children — Guillermo León Valencia Josefina Valencia Muñoz • Parents — Joaquín Valencia Quijano Adelaida Castillo Silva

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

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").

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.

• Illustration — Guillermo Valencia National Museum Valencia married Josefina Muñoz Muñoz in 1908. Together, they had five children. He was the grandfather of Pedro Felipe Valencia López, a Colombian politician.

• Poesías (1898) • Ritos (1899) • Sus mejores poemas (1926) • Catay (1929)