Luis Sepúlveda: an homage

The revolutionary that told stories about seagulls and old men that read love romances.

I had never read anything from Luis Sepúlveda before the book Story of a Seagull and the Cat that Taught her How to Fly, but it was enough to make me fall in love with the writing from this author from Chile. It was with deep sadness that I heard on the news that Luis Sepúlveda, with 70 years-old, had passed, victim of COVID-19. On the 16th of April 2020, the literary world got poorer.

As I have referred, I knew very little from this author and it was a big surprise that I discovered, while researching for this post, what a difficult yet amazing life he had.

Luis Sepúlveda was born in Ovalle, Chile, on the 4th of october 1949, and he was a novelist, director, screenwriter, journalist and political activist. His will to write arose with the influence from a History teacher. From a very young age that political and social matters were of great interest to him. He was part of the Communist Youth of Chile and in the Army of National Liberation from the Socialist Party, being forced to abandon his country after the military coup of Augusto Pinochet. It was in this time that he discovered, as he himself said, that “the first duty of an exiled man is to continue living”(1).

Sepúlveda travelled and worked in several latin countries, such as Brazil, Uruguai, Paraguay and Peru. In Ecuador, he lived among the Shuar indian tribe, participating in a study mission from UNESCO. In 1970 he won the House of Americas Prize for his first book, Chronicles of Pedro Nadie, and a five year scholarship at the Lomonosov University of Moscow, where he didn’t stay for long, since he was expelled due to “attack on proletarian morality”(2).

He was a member of the Simon Bolívar International Brigade and lived in Hamburg, Germany, where he was part of an ecologist movement.

He was married twice and, in 1997, went to live in Gijón, Spain, with his wife, the poet Carmen Yáñez. There he founded and directed the Ibero-American Book Salon, destined to promote the gathering of latin-american writers, editors and booksellers with their european peers.

He produced many works - all of them translated in portuguese - from which we highlight the novels The Old Man that Read Love Romances (dedicated by the author to Chico Mendes, hero of the defense of the Amazon Forest) and Story of a Seagull and the Cat that Taught her How to Fly, but all his books achieved notoriety and admiration from millions of readers.

However, in 2020, he became the first diagnosed COVID-19 case in the Asturias, and, after a couple of months, passed away due to the illness.

Luís Sepúlveda sold over 18 millions of copies worldwide and his works are translated in over 60 languages.

He is a writer that will be deeply missed for, as stated by Teresa Calçada, commissioner of the National Reading Plan

“There are writers that make readers. That is his case.”

Footnotes:

(1) From this article: Luis Sepúlveda: "El primer deber de un exiliado es seguir viviendo"

(2) From Porto Editora website: https://www.portoeditora.pt/autor/luis-sepulveda/6581