Óscar Hahn

Óscar Arturo Hahn Garcés (born 5 July 1938) is a Chilean writer and poet, and a member of the literary generation of the 1960s. Hahn has won multiple distinguished awards, notably the National Prize for Literature (Chile) and the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Award.

Early life and education Óscar Arturo Hahn Garcés was born on 5 July 1938, the son of Ralph Hahn Valdés and Enriqueta Garcés Sánchez. His father died when he was four years old.

He began to write poetry during his adolescence in Rancagua, Chile. After falling in love, he felt compelled to write his first poems.

He received his primary and secondary education in Iquique, Chile at the Don Bosco Salesian College and the Lyceum of Men. Hahn later attended the University of Chile.

Career

In 1959, while at the University of Chile, he won the Student Federation of Chile's Prize in Poetry. In 1961, at only 22 years old, he won the Society of Chilean Writers' Alerce Prize for the work This Black Rose (Esta Rosa Negra). In 1967 he won the Unique Prize of the First Contest in Northern Poetry of the University of Chile for the (then) regional seat of Antofagasta.

He studied and set himself to the University of Chile's Curriculum in the Teaching of Literature while in residence at Arica. In 1972 he was awarded the degree of Master of Arts by the University of Iowa, US and was named a member of the International Writers' Program there.

In 1972, when he returned to Chile, he took a job as adjunct professor at the University of Chile in Arica. In the next year, 1973, his life would change dramatically, due to political developments in his home country; on September 11 of that year, during the Chilean coup of 1973 he was detained by the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which had violently overthrown the government of the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.

Hahn left Chile in 1974 to set down new roots in the United States. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Maryland College Park, and sat on the organizing committee for the Comités del V Congreso Internacional de la Lengua Española (CILE).

Awards Premio Poesía de la Federación de Estudiantes de Chile, 1959 Premio Alerce, 1961 Premio Único del Primer Certamen Zonal de Poesía Nortina, 1967 Premio Altazor de Poesía, 2003 Finalista del Premio Altazor de Poesía, 2004 Hijo Ilustre de Iquique, 2005 Consejero Perpetuo de la Casa de los Poetas de Sevilla, 2006 Premio Casa de América de Poesía Americana, 2006 Premio Premio de Poesía José Lezama Lima, 2008 Finalista del Premio Altazor de Poesía, 2009 Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Award, 2011 Premio Altazor de Poesía, 2012 Premio Nacional de Literatura, 2012 Premio de Poesía Fundación Loewe, 2014 (Loewe Foundation International Poetry Prize)

Works

This Black Rose, 1961. Poetic Sum, 1965 Final Water, 1967. Art of Dying, 1977. The Spanish-American Fantasy Story in the 19th Century, 1978. Love's Disease, 1981. Nuclear Images, 1983. Text on Text, 1984. Flower of the Enamored, 1987. Stars Fixed on a White Sky, 1988. Treaty of Sorceries, 1992. Stolen Verses, 1995. Virtual Anthology, 1996. Retroactive Anthology, 1998. The Founders of the Spanish-American Fantasy Tale, 1998. Love Poems, 2001. Profane Appearances, 2001. Selected Works, 2003. Without Account, 2005. In the Blink of an Eye, 2006. Poetic Work, 2006. Penalty of Life, 2008. Ashes in Love, 2009. The First Darkness, 2011. The Supreme Loneliness, 2012. The Communicating Mirrors, 2015.