Hugo Mujica


Hugo Mujica is an Argentine Catholic priest, poet, writer, and former Trappist monk.

Biography

Mujica was born in Avellaneda, a neighborhood near the city of Buenos Aires, to an anarchist syndicalist father. As his father became blind after a work accident when Mujica was only thirteen years of age, he began to work in a glass factory, continuing with high school at night school. At the same time he pursued studies in Fine Arts. He worked in the factory until 1961 when he departed with a visitor visa to America, having only 37 dollars in his wallet, no knowledge of English and escaping from the mandatory military service, in this way violating the law. Amidst the fervour of the sixties he settled in Greenwich Village, New York. There he began to study philosophy at the experimental Free University of New York, and resumed painting at School of Visual Arts. He was an active painter until the final years of the sixties when, following his own account, 'painting left me'.
He briefly experimented with marijuana and LSD, part of the scene in those days. He briefly met Ralph Metzner, who helped to publish one of his drawings. He was irreligious most of his young years, but that changed with his encounter with Swami Satchidananda. He converted to Catholicism when contemplating monastic life.
He was also present at Woodstock's 1969 music festival, which he later considered his 'farewell to the world'. During a trip along with Satchidananda, only a week after the festival, he became acquainted with the monastic life of the Trappist monastery. Joining shortly thereafter, he lived under vow of silence for seven years. He travelled to a French monastery of the same order. He began to write poetry during his time of monastic asceticism, after three years of having joined the order. He refers to those days in silence as having given him 'an extra lung that other people do not have and I do, I feel that way'.
He visited Mount Athos, Greece, to experience the way of the Eastern Hesychast tradition. He travelled to Europe one more time, and having returned to Argentina finally settled down. He spent a year in solitude in a countryside located in General Alvear, where he wrote his biography only to put it in the trash, because he needed to tell himself what he had lived until that day, and "bring myself up to date and make with that much experiences a narration, a knowing myself in the course of saying myself". He later came back to the city of Buenos Aires, joined seminary and in little time he became a priest. He studied theology and philosophical anthropology. After a few years of officiating at a parish, he left momentarily his priestly vocation and turned to writing in its entirety, along with lecturing abroad and engaging in poetic festivals around the world. In 2006 he began to practice yoga once again. He is still a priest.
He participated in a TV debate with Gilles Lipovetsky, along with Juan José Sebreli, criticizing the complacency of the French philosopher regarding market economy.

Poetry