Manlio Argueta

Manlio Argueta (born 24 November 1935) is a Salvadoran writer, critic, and novelist. Although he is primarily a poet, he is best known in the English speaking world for his novel One Day of Life. Life He was born in San Miguel, El Salvador on November 24, 1935. Argueta has stated that his exposure to “poetic sounds” began during his childhood and that his foundation in poetry stemmed from his childhood imagination. His writing career began with poetry produced at the age of thirteen. He was strongly influenced by the world literature he read as a teenager an cites Pablo Neruda and García Lorca as his primary influences. He later studied law at the University of El Salvador, but concentrated on his poetic work. In 1956, although he was relatively unknown at the time, he won first prize at the "Floral Games of San Miguel", sponsored by the Alberto Masferrer Society of Professors. During the sixties, he began to produce more fiction and became involved with the Committed Generation, a literary group with a leftist political orientation, founded by Ítalo López Vallecillos. All of its members were great admirers of Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism. The group sought to create social change to benefit the "lower classes", but they also initiated a rediscovery of native cultural heritage. Roque Dalton was, perhaps, its best-known member. Because of his writings criticizing the government, he was forced to go into self-exile in Costa Rica. He was there from 1972 until 1993 and worked primarily as a teacher. He also held guest professorships throughout North America and Europe, including the Chair of Contemporary Literature at San Francisco State University.