Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco

Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco (October 12, 1908 – May 1, 1993) — born Alfredo Pareja y Díez Canseco — was a prominent Ecuadorian novelist, essayist, journalist, historian and diplomat.

An innovator of the 20th-century Latin American novel, he was a founding member of the literary Grupo de Guayaquil ("Group of Guayaquil"), which brought a new emphasis to realistic novels.

Pareja was born in Guayaquil in 1908, the son of Fernando Pareja y Pareja (1862-1919) and of Amalia Diez-Canseco y Coloma (1865–1945), daughter of the former Peruvian President Francisco Diez Canseco y Corbacho and his wife.

Pareja had to support his family from the age of 14.

He lived through considerable political turmoil in the 1920s and concluded that his country's salvation lay on the left side of the political spectrum.

He denied, however, being a “left-winger”.

He insisted that he did not want to use his fiction as an instrument of propaganda.

Rather, he sought to simply and directly depict social conditions that called for redress, while denouncing those in power who were guilty of corruption and injustice.

In 1927 Pareja and Jorge Pérez Concha founded the magazine Voluntad in collaboration with Leopoldo Benites Vinueza, but they published only six issues.

His first novel, La casa de los locos (1929), satirized Ecuadorian politics.

He attacked so many living people that publication was considerably delayed.

Pareja attested to the strong influence of the Mexican writer and politician José Vasconcelos.

Other major literary influences included the Greek classics, Balzac, Dostoievski, Thomas Mann, Will Durant and Arnold Toynbee.

Some critics have also detected the influence of Freud, Ehrenburg, Gide and Proust.

In 1930, Pareja embarked on an adventure in the United States.

As a result of the Great Depression, he worked on the New York City docks for a year (his later novel El Muelle (The Pier, 1933) reflects these experiences).

After returning to Ecuador, he received his licenciado from the University of Guayaquil.

He became a professor of history and of Spanish and Spanish American literature at Universidad Laica Vicente Rocafuerte de Guayaquil.

He also served as a Superintendent of Secondary Education and as a deputy of Guayas Province.

Pareja's cycle of narrative fiction was marked by realism and a strong connection with the history of his country (El muelle [“The Pier”], 1933; Hombres sin tiempo [“Men Without Time”], 1941; Las tres ratas [The Three Rats], 1944).

In 1934 he married Mercedes Cucalón Concha, a second cousin and niece of Carlos Concha Torres and his wife.

They had three children together: Cecilia, Jorge and Francisco.

As an intellectual who was attracted to socialist ideas, Pareja sometimes was at cross purposes with the ruling governments in Ecuador.

During the dictatorship of Federico Páez (1935–37), Pareja was incarcerated and ultimately exiled to Chile.

There he worked for the Ercilla Publishing House.

Returning to Ecuador, he became a member of the Assembly, but was jailed again by the regime of President Aurelio Mosquera Narvaez.

(This 30-day detainment formed the basis of his novel, Hombres sin tiempo).

He read at night and assisted as a gate listener at the Colegio Vicente Rocafuerte, which was co-ed until 1937.

He would monitor student conversations to ensure proper decorum.

Pareja completed his early education in his hometown: primary school at the Colegio San Luis Gonzaga of the Christian Brothers.

In 1944 Pareja was appointed as Ecuador's chargé d'affaires in Mexico.

Having established a reputation as a writer both inside and outside of Ecuador, in 1944 he published an important biographical novel, The Barbaric Bonfire, about the actions and historical circumstances surrounding the life and death of General Eloy Alfaro.

In 1945 he became a special representative for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in Washington D.C. He later served in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, coordinating for the governments of México, Central American nations, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

The government of President Jaime Roldós Aguilera (1979–81) appointed Pareja as Chancellor of the Republic and he also served as Foreign Minister of Ecuador (1979–80) and Ambassador to France (1983–84).

His books have not yet been translated into English.

Between August 1979 and July 1980, during the government of President Jaime Roldós Aguilera, Pareja was appointed to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

During the rule of Roldós's successor, President Osvaldo Hurtado, he served as Permanent Delegate to UNESCO and Ambassador to Paris (1983–84).

After retirement, Pareja dedicated his time to historical research.

He died in Quito on 1 May 1993.

Pareja was born into a conservative family but became part of a “socialist generation” in Ecuador.