03162015Mon
Last updateFri, 13 Mar 2015 5pm

Jalisco author to receive posthumous recognition

Guadalajara’s Rotunda of Illustrious Citizens is to receive a new resident after the Jalisco State Congress approved a proposal to move the remains of acclaimed author Juan Jose Arreola to the city center monument.

A statue of Arreola will be commissioned to stand alongside the other esteemed men and one woman that grace the plaza facing the Regional Museum to one side of the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Born in 1918 in Ciudad Guzman, Arreola began working as a bookbinder. In 1937, he relocated to Mexico City, where he entered the Theatrical School of Fine Arts (Escuela Teatral de Bellas Artes).  He is widely recognized as one of the first Latin American writers to abandon realism; he used elements of fantasy to underscore existentialist and absurdist ideas in his work.   In 1952, he published “Confabulario,” widely considered to be his greatest work. It was awarded the Jalisco Literary Prize in 1953.