Alfredo Espino Najarro

Alfredo Espino (30 January 1900 – 24 May 1928), also known as , was a Salvadoran poet known for his posthumous anthology of 96 poems, , which has become one of the most well known poetic works in El Salvador. His poetry has been described as part of the Salvadoran development of costumbrismo. Espino was born in Ahuachapán Department and died in the capital city of San Salvador.

Biography Edgardo Alfredo Espino Najarro was born in Ahuachapán Department, in western El Salvador, on January 30, 1900. He was the second of eight children of educator Enriqueta Najarro and Alfonso Espino, both teachers and poets. He grew up in a home filled with poetry and a love of art. According to historian Carlos Cañas Dinarte, he was remembered as being "modest and easy-going, of a gentle and even timid temperament, a fine humorist in intimate settings and possessor of an astonishing memory." He would write poetry and show them to his close family, whose positive responses he reacted to with timidity. He came to be known as the but he also broached themes like prostitution, sadness, and women who suffered from violence and abortions. Because of his focus on rural themes, his works were seen as culturally conformist and came to be considered the model for state-approved poetry in El Salvador; according to Latin Americanist literary critic John Beverly and researcher Marc Zimmerman, this placed his work in "the pole opposite" of later generations of Salvadoran poets. Among his most popular works are , (, , , .