Rubén Bareiro Saguier was a Paraguayan writer, poet and diplomat.
Early life
Rubén Bareiro Saguier was born and grew up in Villeta, Paraguay. At the age of 11, he learned of the injustice of living in an authoritarian regime when the police, after looking for his father and failing to find him, took the young Rubén and imprisoned him in the town's police station. In 1947, Bareiro Saguier received his school baccalaureate and began studying literature at the Universidad Nacional de Asunción. He stood out as a student leader, something which cost him further imprisonment. He received a bachelor's degree in literature in 1957. In 1962 he received a grant to study at the Universidad Paúl Valéry-Montpellier III, for which purpose he moved to France.
Career
Bareiro Saguier began his literary career writing poems. In 1964 he published his first book, Biografía de ausente. In France, he worked as an assistant and Spanish teacher at the University of Paris, and then as a professor of Hispanic American literature and Guaraní language at the University of Vincennes. He was also part of the National Center of Scientific Investigation in Paris. With the publication of Ojo por diente in 1971, he received the Cuban prize "Casa de las Américas". Because of this prize, the following year on one of his numerous visits to Paraguay he was arrested and locked up for a month and a half in the infamous Department of Investigations, at the center of the repression under the regime of Alfredo Stroessner, accused of promoting "rebellious bustle". Immediately intellectuals from around the world mobilized to demand Bareiro Seguier's liberation, including individuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel García Márquez, Simone de Beauvoir and Fernando Savater. Finally, he was released and expelled from the country, sentenced to an exile which lasted until the fall of the dictatorship in 1989.
Bareiro Saguier worked as ambassador for Paraguay in France from 1994 to 2003, when he returned to Paraguay. He died in hospital in Asunción, Paraguay on March 25, 2014 after several months of poor health following a heart attack.
Honors and awards
1950: First prize, Concurso de Cuentos – Revista Panorama, Asunción
1952: First prize, Concurso Ateneo Paraguayo, Asunción
1954: First prize, Concurso de Cuentos – Revista Panorama, Asunción
1970: Special mention, Concurso de poesía Latinoamericana – Revista Imagen Caracas
1972: Casa de las Américas Prize for his book Ojo de diente
Publications
Cuento y Novela, in collaboration with Manuel Arguello. Paraguay nation of métis.
Biografía de ausente, poetry with illustrations by Carlos Colombino
Misa por un continente, with music by Francisco Marín, recorded by Barclay.
