Edgar Smith

Edgar Smith (born August 8, 1973) is a Dominican author and poet born in Villa Consuelo, a neighborhood in the capital city of Santo Domingo.

He is the eldest child of Juana I. Fernández and Ramón Smith, a member of the International Taekwon-Do Federation Hall of Fame.

Edgar graduated from high school in 1992 from Santo Cura de Ars school (CESCAR).

He went on to study Marketing at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), but dropped out after barely two semesters.

Smith's earliest encounters with the written word were from Comic books and Pulp-Westerns.

He was an avid reader of Marcial LaFuente: Estefanía and Rurales de Texas, as well as the Kaliman, Fantomas, Memin, and Samurai Comic books—these were all Spanish Comic books that circulated regularly in Santo Domingo.

He was particularly fond of the description of fight scenes and gun duels in the pulp-Westerns and the detailed physiques of good and bad guys, as well as the way the writers knew how to keep building tension throughout each story.

These were the first signs that he was into reading not only for the stories themselves, but also because he was in awe of the writing: of the ability to create such new worlds.

Smith also liked (and eventually collected)classical North-American Superhero Comics.

His favorite characters are Superman, The Hulk, Batman, Daredevil, Gladiator, and Wolverine.

Although he was a romantic at heart, who liked to improvise rhymed poems for girls, relatives and friends, he was better known among them for his inclinations to story-telling.

He would spend long minutes improvising fantastic stories in the living room, where his sisters and closest friends would gather for la chercha (the get-together), to fool around and to hear Edgar narrate what he said were dreams, but everyone knew were not.

He is a poet, writer, editor and translator, who runs his own small publishing company, Books & Smith, in New York City, where he has resided since 2010.

His poems and short stories have been included in anthologies and magazines, such as Antología Poética Solo Para Locos, Multilingual Anthology: The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2016, Voces de Nuevo Siglo, Voces del café, Trazos, Hybrido, The official Lacuhe Gazette, and Dualis Dualis, among others.

Edgar is the oldest of five siblings: Joan Smith and Arlette Alvarez, sisters from his mother's side, and Jennepher and Enmanuel Smith from his father's. He was born and raised in Villa Consuelo, a typically poor neighborhood in Santo Domingo.

His family was catholic but not entirely devout.

Edgar had a rather happy childhood, despite the absence of his father, who migrated to the United States when Edgar was three years old.

The two would see each other again roughly three or four times in a lapse of at least eighteen years.

His grandfather, Carlos Ignacio Fernández Sánchez, AKA El Curro, became the father figure in Edgar's life.

Regarded as an honest and kind man who liked women and enjoyed traveling, he is the great grandson of Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, one of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic.

Edgar's nickname for him was Abu, short for abuelo (grandfather).

El Curro was Edgar's first role model.

Juana, his mother, was another influential person in the poet's journey.

Light-spirited and social, she enjoyed reading and, although dropped out, did attend college until she was pregnant with Edgar—to El Curro's disappointment.

She owned a set of the Illustrated Cumbre Encyclopedia, which for many years was Edgar's source for cultural research, homework, and intellectual disputes with his friends.

Despite the general sense of joy and stability at home, the absence of his father affected Edgar's self-confidence as a kid.

His mother and grandpa were over-protective, aware that the streets of Villa Consuelo brimmed with drug dealers, thieves, knife-fighters and women of ill repute, which led to limited street playtime and close supervision of his friends and whereabouts.

It is common to find references in Edgar's writings about instances of loneliness during his childhood and early teenagerhood.

Recurring themes are his fear of flying kites like the other children (who would climb up on rooftops and balconies), and his creation of paper heroes and monsters at the top of the wooden stairs on the second floor of la noventa (#90), as his house was known to everyone back then.

Coming from one of the better-off families on his street, la Baltasara de los Reyes, as a result of his grandfather's Motorcycle Spare Parts shop, Edgar was able to attend private schools throughout his elementary and high school periods.

He was a good elementary school student, but his grades suffered in high school.

One of the very first schools Edgar attended was el Maternal Alpa.

It was a sort of pre-school or Kindergarten.

His childhood best friend was Yuri García.

Yu or Bomba, as Edgar called him, was a kind, smart and humble kid whose mother, Patria, owned a beauty salon a block-and-a-half from Edgar's house.

The Garcías, however, belonged to the Middle class (the division of Social classes is markedly clear in the Dominican Republic)and lived in a nice neighborhood called Invi.

Despite their statuses, their moms were acquaintances and they were inseparable friends.

Whenever it was possible, Edgar would spend weekends in el Invi and, three or four times, was allowed to travel with Yuri's family to los Guayacanes (a beach area in a town of the same name) for Easter time.

These are some of Edgar's fondest memories as a child and growing teenager.

Yuri and his family (even constantly-serious-looking Juan García, Yuri's father) felt like a second family to the author.