My Brief Essays as a Young Man
Around 1985, I posted several brief essays on my literary billboard (Notas y Letras) at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. Most of these essays were related to literary content and analysis. I had typed these essays using an American typewriter that I got from my father, and it was most likely an Epson. Although I always wanted an IBM Selectric III, which sold in Colombia under the name of IBM 21, my father was unable to find it, probably due to the name discrepancy or perhaps it was too expensive, since it was in fact a business machine that I had seen in various businesses during my early working years. I also used a old Remington to write some of these essays, which I probably somehow got from the Escuela Normal (Normal School.)
The pictures below show some some excerpts of two important essays:
The former one describes literary writing as a work that requires courage. The title was probably derived from the series Profiles in Courage on JFK, which was being presented on Colombian TV at the time. It contains some epigraphs from Plato on the incomprehensible nature of poetry and on the psychological reason for writing and the kinesthetic nature of poetry. The latter discusses the so called Esthetic Distance, a term that was coined and used by some critics to explain and discuss García Márquez's lenghy exhile from his native Colombia.
The First Page of an Essay on the Courage to Write
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