THE REVOLUTIONARY POET

Francisco Jose Cajas Ovando

Guatemalan Writer and historian

Otto Rene Castillo was born on April 25th, 1934. He was the son of Juana de Dios Castillo Merida, from whom he inherited his personality and verbosity. These characteristics eventually led him to win the title of Revolutionary Poet of America. Castillo went to primary school in Quetzaltenango and later moved to Guatemala City to attend secondary school at the Central National Institute for Boys. In the Democratic Republic of Germany, he attended the University of Leipzig. He majored in cinematography, taught by Jorvis Ivens, and graduated with a Master's degree in Arts.

At age eighteen, he began his career writing articles for youth magazines. In 1953, poet Werner Ovalle Lopez gave a seminar called, "The Sunday Hour" and declared Castillo a "worthy youth" because at this time he was writing articles for a variety of magazines. As a youth, Castillo participated in the student's association and was president of a youth organization called the Work Party of Guatemala. In 1954, during the Proimperialistic counter revolution, this leading youth with some other democratic intellectuals, went into exile.

Otto Rene Castillo took refuge in El Salvador where he worked as a laborer, salesman and clerk. His life as an emigrant was hard and poor.  But during this time, he met Oswaldo Escobar Velado, Roque Dalton Garcia, Roberto Armijo and other writers who encouraged him by reading and promoting his literary works. These were published in the "Daily Latino. "  From that point, he went to the university to study law and then founded the University Literary Circle. His influences were Neruda, Hernandez and Vallejo. In 1955, Castillo received the poetry prize of Central America , which was shared by Roque Dalton. In 1956, he received another prize from Guatemalan university students in celebration of the poem, "Motherland, let's Walk." This work, according to his critics, is a reflection of the misery and sadness caused by immeasurable exploitation.

In 1957 after the death of dictator Castillo Armas, the people were, "allowed to breathe easily." Otto Rene Castillo returned to Guatemala to integrate himself into the cultural movement and study law at the University of San Carlos. In 1959, he left for Leipzig by means of the Filadelfo Salazar Scholarship. Between 1957 and 1959 his poems were released in the student editions of "The Student informer" and the "The Impartial." He traveled to Europe, Asia and Africa, acquiring an extensive humane world vision. In 1964, he returned to Guatemala to dedicate himself to cultural activities and the political actions of the Worker's Party. He founded the Experimental Theater of the Capital City Municipality, collaborating with the association of university students who published some of his sonnets in their book "Tecun Uman." Castillo was also published in the university magazine, "Spears and Letters." In 1964, he was put in jail by the Peralta Azurdia regime. Later he was expropriated, traveling to Europe where he organized the World Youth Festival. He later returned secretly to Guatemala to gather up a rebel force to combat the Montenegrista regime. In the distant and humid mountain ranges of Zacapa and Izabel, Catillo experienced the demanding limitations of the guerrilla insurrection and the intimidating, harsh Guatemalan system. Still young Castillo promised the motherland to drink her bitter cups of grief and affliction and become blind so that she can see, fulfilling the words in his poem, "Vamos Patria a Caminar," March 19th, 1967 .  He was captured in the mountains of Sierra de las Minas, along with Nora Paiz. He was taken to the brutal estate of Arrana in Zacapa, where he was tortured and burned with various other plantation workers.

The people paid homage in Guatemala, great Britain and Costa Rica to Castillo after his death, by publishing his work "Report of Injustice."

In the final words of Oscar Arutro Palencia, "The thirty three years that Castillo lived with us is our evidence that the decent, intellectual, artistic, and scientific man should grow, raising himself up with his own people, with the humble".

© Copyright 1996 by Juan Carlos Aguilar and Casa de Español Xelajú