Quick Facts
Biography
Julio Correa Myzkowsky (August 30, 1890 – July 14, 1953) was a Paraguayan poet in Guarani language.
Correa's maternal grandfather, Myzkowsky, was of Polish origin, while his father was Portuguese. Correa left school at young age.
He started to publish his poems in 1926.
Encouraged by the poet Manuel Ortiz Guerrero, he started to write an article titled “Dialoguitos Callejeros” (Small Street Dialogues) in the newspaper Guarani, of Facundo Recalde.
His talent became apparent during the Chaco War. His work in the Guarani language was very well received by the public and became known as an author, actor and director.
From 1934 to 1936, he published his poems in the magazine Guarania, of Natalicio González. Those became part, later on, of the book Body and Soul. (1943). In 1947, he was arrested because of his writings. The civil war that year had a negative effect on the author, and he became depressed. He remained isolated in his country house in Luque, where he died on July 14, 1953.
Childhood and youth
He came from a well-to-do family that had fallen on hard times as a result of adversities in the aftermath of the war of 1870. His work is, without doubt, the utmost expression of creation of Paraguayan dramatic art and the Guarani theatre, always inspired in social subjects. Descendant of Brazilian people, his father fought in the war and once it ended, decided to stay in Paraguay, like many other soldiers at the time. As a child he grew among people that talk Guaraní, among countryman and peons, and it was from that time, he started to acknowledge their struggles to survive. When he became a grown man, he discovered himself as able to read this people, as an interpreter to them, in the theater as in the social action.
He was very good friends with the sculptor Erminio Blotta (from Rosario, Argentina), honorary citizen of Paraguay.
His family
Married with the notorious actress, Georgina Martínez. They founded together a theatre company, with which he traveled to every part of Paraguay, carrying a message condemning the injustice of large entailed lands and the exploit of the working country man.
Trajectory
Walter Wey, a Brazilian researcher, makes a colorful portrait of the multifaceted Correa: “Who does not know and admire Julio Correa? Poet, dramatist, businessman, storyteller and distiller of politic and literary poisons. Maybe the victims, men and women of his satirical stories, felt disrespected but all of them know those stories by memory. Hearing Correa recite them in Palma Street or in his country house in Luque constituted one of the most beautiful shows to witness. It was because of this, that he was persecuted and sometimes put in jail, to satisfaction of his detractors. But the applause and admiration of the people kept him going.
He was the creator of the Guarani theatre, its greater author and also its best actor. With great intuition he felt the Paraguayan problematic was the unjust distribution of land, because it was just like Justo Pastor Benítez wrote: “the Paraguayan people are just a mere occupant of his own land”. Correa had this saying for truth and became a fighter for the cause, standing against foreign and national large entailed land with enormous courage. In his house in Luque a single book cannot be seen, only farm animals, there is nothing that reminiscence the house of a poet.
Julio Correa is a poet without culture and, what’s more interesting, without the desire or preoccupation to acquire it. The poems in Spanish language he gathered in his book “Alma y Cuerpo” (Body and Soul) closed a period in time and marked the beginning of a new road, that would be widened by Hérib Campos Cervera, with the introduction of the “literature of vanguard” It is Campos Cervera, that completes the description of Correa, saying: “He is the great creator of images of our society and problematic, the drama of misery, land, blood and jealousy”.
The Paraguayan people have Correa as a mirror of its hope, pain, and joy. He did not settle for just creating a story character, he also manifested their joy and sadness, and their moral ups and downs. In stage, he showed the audience the different shades of passion, all the rage of hatred and the goodness of compassion, his voice transmitted the sentiment of his art.
Work
His production includes:
- Ñane mba’era’y (What cannot be ours)
- Guerra aja (During the war)
- Karai Ulogio (Mister Ulogio)
- Tereko yevy fréntepe (Go back to the front)
- Pleito rire (After the dispute)
- Péicha guarante (Just like that)
- Sandía yvyguy (Hidden watermelon)
- Karu poka (Poor eating)
- Honorio causa (Because of Honorio)
- Po’a nda ja jokoi (Luck is not stopped)
- Sombrero kaá (Guarani expression that means “the lover of another one’s love)
Julio Correa also wrote Yvy yara, Toribio, Yuaijhugui reí, Po’a rusuva and La culpa de bueno.
Among his stories are Nicolasia del Espiritu Santo (1943), El Padre Cantalicio, El borracho de la casa and El hombre que robó una pava (unconcluded), all of these were published after his death.
Last Years
He died on July 14, 1953 in Luque, Paraguay, city close to the Paraguayan capital. His house is nowadays the “Museum Julio Correa”.