Juan Liscano

Juan Liscano Velutini (7 July 1915 – 17 February 2001) was a Venezuelan poet, folklorist, writer and critic. He was director of Monte Ávila Editores. Major examples of his poetic work are: Nuevo mundo Orinoco, Cármenes (1966) and Fundaciones (1981). Also wrote: Panorama de la literatura venezolana actual (1973) Espiritualidad y literatura: una relación tormentosa (1976), Los fuegos apagados (1990) and El origen sigue siendo (1991). In 1990, Liscano published a personal anthology, a route for his poetic trajectory. He won the Venezuelan National Prize for Literature in 1951.

Liscano was born in Caracas in 1915. He was the editor of the journal Zona franca from 1964 to 1983. He was interested in the pre-colonization folk culture of the coastal regions of Venezuela, reflected in his early works. As a supporter of President Rómulo Gallegos, he was exiled from Venezuela for ten years after Gallegos' presidency ended in a military coup.