Enrique Lihn

Enrique Lihn Carrasco (3 September 1929 - 10 July 1988) was a Chilean writer, literary critic, and cartoonist, mostly known as a poet, but who also wrote essays, short stories, novels, plays, and comic books.

Son of Enrique Lihn Doll and María Carrasco Délano, Enrique Lihn completed his primary education at Saint George's College and later attended Santiago's Liceo Alemán.

Lihn displayed an early aptitude for reading and was well-versed in Spanish, French, Anglo-Saxon, and Latin American poetry from a young age.

In 1942, at the tender age of thirteen, he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Chile, initially intending to study visual arts.

Although Lihn initially pursued painting at the university, he ultimately decided to embark on a writing career.

Between 1949 and 1955, he published his first two poetry books and penned an essay on the work of Nicanor Parra.

In collaboration with Nicanor Parra, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jorge Sanhueza, Jorge Berti, Roberto Humeres, and Luis Oyarzún, Lihn created Quebrantahuesos, a collage published in 1952.

Lihn parted ways with mime artist and dancer Ivette Mingram when their daughter Andrea, who would later become an actress, was just a year and a half old.

Lihn was an active member of the Popular Action Front in Chile and showed his support for Salvador Allende during the presidential elections of 1958 and 1964.

During the latter half of the 1960s, Lihn resided in Havana for two years.

In Cuba, he engaged in diverse activities, working at Casa de las Américas, writing for the Granma newspaper, composing art catalogs, and editing an anthology of Vicente Huidobro's works.

He also fell in love and married a mulata, forming close friendships with notable individuals such as Roque Dalton and Heberto Padilla.

Lihn fully immersed himself in Latin American literature and, most importantly, gained firsthand experience of the revolution.

However, over time, he became disillusioned.

Upon his return to Chile in the late 1960s, Lihn's affection for Cuba began to wane, mirroring the tension he had witnessed in the country.

In 1963, Lihn published La pieza oscura (The Dark Room), a poetry collection he considered to be his first significant work.

In 1965, at the age of thirty-five, Lihn was awarded a UNESCO scholarship to study museology in various European cities, including Paris.

This marked his first trip abroad, an experience that held great significance for the author.

Although he unfortunately lost the notebook he kept during the journey, its impact was captured in his work Poesía de paso, which won the Casa de las Américas Prize in 1966.

This strain found expression in the two poetry collections he published in 1969: Escrito en Cuba and La musiquilla de las pobres esferas.

With writer Germán Marín, Lihn co-founded the Cormorán magazine of Editorial Universitaria, which released eight issues between August 1969 and December 1970.

The culmination of this change occurred in 1970 when he definitively distanced himself from Cuba due to the accusation of treason against his friend Padilla.

Lihn publicly defended Padilla, an act that sealed his permanent separation from the island.

Consequently, the Chilean poet became an "uncomfortable author for Cuba," as remarked by Germán Marín, or, in Lihn's own words, a "citizen under suspicion."

From 1970 to 1973, Lihn directed the poetry workshop at the Catholic University of Chile.

This book was subsequently translated into French as La chambre noire and published in Paris (Pierre Jean Oswald Editeur, 1972) as a bilingual edition, featuring cover art and illustrations by Roberto Matta.

He also served as a research professor of literature at the Center for Humanistic Studies, led by Cristián Huneeus, at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile starting in 1972.

During this period, he crossed paths with other cultural figures of the time, including poet and art theorist Ronald Kay.

In the magazine Manuscritos, Kay highlighted the Quebrantahuesos, poetry murals created by Nicanor Parra, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Lihn using the collage technique.

In 1973, Lihn published his novel Batman en Chile in Argentina, but due to its release coinciding with the coup d'état in Chile, it was not distributed within the country.

Two years later, Lihn traveled to France as a guest of the French government.

He made a one-month stop in New York, marking his first visit to the United States.

During this time, he stayed at Pedro Lastra's house, where he met Óscar Hahn and Jaime Giordano.

Lihn also gave recitals at several universities, including Yale, Rutgers, Maryland, Stony Brook, The City University of New York, and the Center of Inter-American Relations.

In 1976, Lihn published his novel La orquesta de cristal through Editorial Sudamericana, with Héctor Libertella as the editor.

While in France, he wrote París, situación irregular, which was published in Chile in 1977.

In 1978, Lihn received the Guggenheim Fellowship, which brought him to New York for a few months.

In 1980, his third extensive narrative work, El arte de la palabra, was published in Spain.

Both of these works feature Gerardo de Pompier (the author's alter ego) and Roberto Albornoz as protagonists and narrators.

It was not until almost thirty years later, in 2009, within the framework of the editions of books by Chilean authors published by Casa de las Américas for the Havana International Book Fair—where Chile was the guest of honor—that an anthology of Lihn's work titled Una voz parecida al contrario was finally published.