Graciela Levi Castillo

Graciela Levi Castillo (4 September 1926 – 8 October 2014) was an Ecuadorian journalist and writer.

Career Graciela Levi Castillo was born in Guayaquil in 1926. She was the daughter of Roberto Levi Hoffman, a Sephardic Jewish chemist who had immigrated from Germany, and María Piedad Castillo de Levi, a prominent Ecuadorian writer and feminist.

In her work as a journalist, Levi Castillo interviewed a wide variety of high-profile international figures, including the politicians Eva Perón, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gamal Abdel Nasser; the writers Jean Cocteau and Ernest Hemingway; the painters Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst; and the performers Frank Sinatra and Sofia Loren. She had a special audience with Pope Pius XII and reported exclusively on the canonization of the first Ecuadorian saint, Mariana de Jesús.

In 1963, she married the New York City lawyer Bernard Olcott. Their marriage only lasted for two years, and Levi Castillo returned to Ecuador with their young daughter, Victoria, after their divorce.

Death and recognition In 1997 Ecuador's National Congress honored her for her work in social communications. A park was also named for her in northern Guayaquil the following year.