Can the animal part be more significant than the spiritual part in human beings?

For Guatemalan author, Rafael Arevalo Martinez, the answer is ... yes.

According to his concept of human beings each individual has a particular analogy with an animal species or family.

Thus, Arevalo Martinez's vision is not that beasts are men, it is men who are still beasts.

Rafael Arevalo Martinez was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala on July 22, 1884. He attended the Mixed School of Mrs. Concepcion Aguilar and later graduated from the San Jose de los Infantes School, where he founded, managed and was editor-in-chief of the newspaper, "El Primero Complementario".

He began his public literary life at age 21, and in January 1909, published the short-story "Woman and Children". The following year he founded and managed the Juan Chapin magazine, the main publication of a group of authors known as the Generation of 1910. They guided Guatemala literature out of Modernism and with Rafael Arevalo it progressed towards a complexity precursor to "Hispanic American magic realism".

In 1914, his book, "The Man Who Looked Like a Horse" gave rise to psychological stories that became popular in Central American literature.

Psychozoology is a literary style invented by Arevalo Martinez, where he attempted to explore the conflict between an individual's animal and spiritual nature.

Sailing between political satire, psychological impressions, his neurosis, insights and a daily mixture of science and mysticism, he produced many works. The most important are: in NOVELS: "One Life", "The Office of Peace in Orolandia", "Nights in the Nuncial Palace", "The World of the Maharanchias", "Voyage to Ipanda". In STORIES: "The Man Who Looked Like a Horse", "Mr. Monitor” and "The Ambassador from Torlania"). In POETRY: "Maya", "The Tormented", "The Roses of Engaddi", “Along the Little Path, Poems and Stories and Poetry”. In DRAMAS: "The Dukes of Endor") and "The Prodigal Son". In ESSAYS: "Conception of the Cosmos", "Spanish Influence in the Formation of Central American Nationality" and “Ecce Pericles”, among many others.

His culture, his literary temperament, his scholarly monastic life, his building instinct of a bird, which weaves its nest artfully, could have turned him into a geographer, botanist or zoologist. His gift as an observer and his talent could have made him stand out in any specialty. However, he was attracted to library science and his skill led him to become director of the Guatemalan National Library from 1926 to 1946, when he was appointed his country's representative at the Pan-American Union in Washington, forerunner of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Like many intellectuals of his time, he avoided leaning to the right or the left politically, therefore he was practically "excluded" from the history, anthologies and literary references of the 20th century.

Fortunately, now the blocks into which the world was split have disappeared, his forgotten production is now being reassessed with fresh eyes. Today we can say that Rafael Arevalo Martinez, who died in Guatemala City in 1975, was one of the most important precursors of modern Latin American literature.

Rafael Arevalo Martinez, an example of the best of the latin spirit.