Juan Felipe Toruño

Juan Felipe Toruño (León, Nicaragua, May 1, 1898 – San Salvador, El Salvador, August 31, 1980) was a prolific Nicaraguan journalist and teacher who spent most of his life in El Salvador. His literary output included poetry, novels, literary criticism, and articles on the history of Central American literature. Early life At the age of twelve, Toruño left the Christian Brothers of San Juan Bautista school in his birth city of León to work as a teacher in Posoltega, Nicaragua.

In 1910 he joined the army to defend the liberal presidency of José Madriz, who was eventually exiled to Mexico. Madriz was replaced by Juan José Estrada Morales, a military leader of the liberal-conservative alliance, supported by the United States. After the liberal defeat, Toruño, who was still a minor at the time, was forced to flee to the Cordillera de los Maribios mountains of Nicaragua for several months. He drank water from ponds, ate leaves and fruits, and returned to León "barefoot and in rags." He began writing poetry at this time, although these early poems have been lost to posterity. He began his journalism career in 1918 at Eco Nacional, where he first published his poetry. and an early proponent of women's dignity at a time when this attitude was rare in El Salvador; he published an essay called "La mujer en las letras salvadoreñas" (English: Women in Salvadoran Letters).

He received the title of professor of Spanish, Language and Literature from the Ministry of Culture in 1938, and in 1940 he was elected president of the Ateneo de El Salvador, a position he held for ten years.

He died of a stroke at the age of 82.

Work

Senderos espirituales, poetry (1922). Ritmos de vida, poetry , (1924). La mariposa negra, novel, (1928). El silencio, novel (1935), awarded the American Book Contest prize in Matanzas, Cuba (1938). Tríptico de vida, poetry (1935), awarded the Iberoamerican Sonnets Prize in Argentina (1936). Los desterrados, volume I, literary criticism (1938). La Nicaragua de hoy, long-form journalistic articles (1939). Hacia el sol, poetry (1940). Vaso espiritual, poetry (1941). Los desterrados, volume II, literary criticism (1942). Raíz y sombra del futuro, poetry (1944). Chupasangre, short story (1945), International Alfonso Hernández Catá Award for Stories, Havana, Cuba. Arcilla mística, poetry (1946). Dos tierras, short stories (1947). Huésped de la noche, poetry (1948). El introvertismo en poesía, essays (1950). Un viaje por América, long-form journalistic articles (1951). Órbita de sonetos, poetry (1952). Los desterrados, volume III, literary criticism (1952). Poesía negra, poetry (1953). Ciudad dormida, long-form journalistic articles (1955). Desarrollo literario de El Salvador: ensayo cronológico de generaciones y etapas de las letras salvadoreñas (1958), awarded in the National Culture Contest of El Salvador (1957). Sucinta reseña de las letras nicaragüenses, essay (1959). Gavidia entre raras fuerzas étnicas de su obra y de su vida (1969). Poemas andantes, essays (1977).