{{Short description|Mexican poet and diplomat (1904-1952)}} {{Infobox writer | name = Gilberto Owen Estrada | image = RETRATO DE GILBERTO OWEN (13451033713).jpg | imagesize = | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = May 13, 1904 | birth_place = Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico | death_date = March 9, 1952 (aged 47) | death_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | occupation = | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = poems | subject = | movement = | notableworks = | spouse = Cecilia Salazar Roldán | partner = | children = 2<ref name="Material de Lectura" /> | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = | website = | portaldisp = | resting_place = Holy Cross Cemetery, Yeadon, Pennsylvania, U.S. }}
'''Gilberto Owen Estrada''' (May 13, 1904 – March 9, 1952<ref>Tomás Segovia: [https://books.google.com/books?id=NHj6oNiaMbYC&dq=%22Gilberto+Owen%22+1904&pg=PA9 ''Perseo vencido y otros poemas''], Huerga Y Fierro Editores, 2006, p. 9.</ref>) was a Mexican poet and diplomat.
== Biography == Officially registered as Gilberto Estrada, son of Margarita Estrada from Michoacán, Gilberto Owen was born in Rosario, Sinaloa (May 13, 1904). He spent some of his early years (1919–1923) in Toluca, where he studied at the ''Instituto Científico y Literario''. In 1923, he left Toluca and went to Mexico City, after he got contact to General Álvaro Obregón, who engaged him in the Secretaría de la Presidencia, where he served from August 1923 to June 1928. He matriculated in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. At this time he met the actress Clementina Otero,<ref name="sinaloa.gob.mex">[http://laip.sinaloa.gob.mx/NR/rdonlyres/3EB1A631-DF92-4BCE-A4E0-BFAD088EC43B/0/GILBERTOOWEN.doc ''Gilberto Owen''] (Spanish) at ''sinaloa.gob.mex''.</ref> and people like Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, Salvador Novo, Xavier Villaurrutia, Jorge Cuesta, Carlos Pellicer, Jaime Torres Bodet, José Gorostiza, Enrique González Rojo and others, when he joined the group Los Contemporáneos, where he also wrote for the magazine "Ulises" in 1926.<ref name="ciudadania-express">[https://ciudadania-express.com/2009/03/09/gilberto-owen-un-poeta-de-breve-y-gran-significacion/ ''Gilberto Owen un poeta de breve y gran significación''] (Spanish), March 9, 2009.</ref> He is presumed to be the romantic one and the least civilized of the group.<ref name="Material de Lectura">Luis Mario Schneider: [http://www.materialdelectura.unam.mx/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=93&Itemid=31&limit=1&limitstart=0 ''Gilberto Owen- El infierno perdido''] (Spanish), ''Material de Lectura'' 36, UNAM.</ref>
He spent some years in Bogota where he worked as a journalist and newspaper translator. A compilation of his work in Bogota, Colombia, has been published. Editors Celene García Ávila and Antonio Cajero rescued from ''El Tiempo'' (1933–1935) articles and chronicles that display a variety of styles and deal with topics such as politics, extraordinary facts and lifestyle in Latin America. This book was published by Miguel Angel Porrua and Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM) in 2009.
In July 1928<ref name="sinaloa.gob.mex" /> he became diplomat of the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, and so he lived and wrote the longest time of his life abroad, first in the United States, later in Peru, Ecuador,<ref name="MSN">[http://es.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761588727/Gilberto_Owen.html ''Gilberto Owen''] (Spanish), MSN Encarta. [https://web.archive.org/web/20050503163401/http://es.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761588727/Gilberto_Owen.html Archived] 2009-10-31.</ref> and at the end of 1932 in Colombia, where he married Cecilia Salazar Roldán on December 2, 1935,<ref name="sinaloa.gob.mex" /> daughter of the Colombian General and governor of Panama Víctor Manuel Salazar.<ref name="Material de Lectura" /><ref>[https://www.worldstatesmen.org/Colombia_states.html ''Colombian States and Panama'']</ref> In Bogotá he published sporadically in the newspaper "El Tiempo".<ref name="Material de Lectura" /> After his marriage failed, he returned to Mexico in 1942, where he wrote for the magazine "El hijo pródigo". In the end of the 1940s he had serious health problems,<ref name="sinaloa.gob.mex" /> when he was transferred to the Consulate of Mexico in Philadelphia, where he finally served as vice-consul.<ref name="MSN" />
Owen died in Philadelphia from cirrhosis due to alcoholism. His family could not arrange for his body to be returned to Mexico and he was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania in an unmarked grave.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Cartagena |first1=Rosa |title=How did a famous Mexican poet end up buried and forgotten in the Philadelphia suburbs? |url=https://www.inquirer.com/arts/gilberto-owen-estrada-mexican-poet-abandoned-grave-20230321.html?sfmc_id=0031U00001gNleYQAS&sub_source=must_read_alerts_newsletter&list_name=DE37_Newsletter_Must_Read&int_promo=newsletter&et_rid=246232230 |access-date=22 March 2023 |publisher=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=March 21, 2023}}</ref>
A literature prize is awarded in his name. Owen is also a central character in the novel ''Faces in the Crowd'' (2011) by Valeria Luiselli.
== Works == <ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cucsh.udg.mx/CUCSH/argos/antologi/owen.htm |title=''Gilberto Owen (1905-1952) - bibliografia poética'' |access-date=2009-06-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101007185844/http://www.cucsh.udg.mx/CUCSH/argos/antologi/owen.htm |archive-date=2010-10-07 |url-status=dead }}</ref> {{div col|colwidth=30em}} * ''La llama fría'' (short-novel), 1925 * ''Desvelo'', 1925 * ''Novela como nube'' (prose), 1928 * ''Línea'', 1930 * ''Libro de Ruth'', 1944 * ''Perseo vencido'', 1948 * ''Simbad el varado'', 1948 * ''Poesía y prosa'', 1953 * ''Primeros versos'', 1957 * ''El infierno perdido'', 1978 * ''Obras'', 1979 {{div col end|2}}
== Further reading == * Tomás Segovia: [https://books.google.com/books?id=vsl0esxJNDgC ''Cuatro ensayos sobre Gilberto Owen''] (Spanish), 2001 {{ISBN|968-16-6191-5}} * Guillermo Sheridan: [https://web.archive.org/web/20090426032852/http://www.libros.unam.mx/resultado.html?catalogo=NOVEDADES&palclave=&tema=&isbn=9789703239979 ''Tres ensayos sobre Gilberto Owen''] (Spanish), 2008 {{ISBN|978-970-32-3997-9}} * Francisco Javier Beltrán Cabrera, Cynthia Araceli Ramírez Peñaloza: [https://books.google.com/books?id=QBKyK9PVZ7gC ''Gilberto Owen Estrada: cien años de poesía''] (Spanish), 2005 {{ISBN|968-835-887-8}} * Francisco Javier Beltrán Cabrera, Cynthia Araceli Ramírez Peñaloza: [https://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero34/lopeowen.html ''Lope de Vega, Góngora y Gilberto Owen''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509191842/http://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero34/lopeowen.html |date=2015-05-09 }} (Spanish), 2006. * Francisco Javier Beltrán Cabrera, Cynthia Araceli Ramírez Peñaloza: [https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=28101103 ''Notas para una nueva edición de la obra de Gilberto Owen''] (Spanish), 2006. * Francisco Javier Beltrán Cabrera, Cynthia Araceli Ramírez Peñaloza: [https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/104/10414216.pdf ''La revista Esfuerzo: inicios periodísticos de Gilberto Owen''] (Spanish), 2007. * Francisco Javier Beltrán Cabrera, Cynthia Araceli Ramírez Peñaloza: [https://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero47/poepura.html ''La poesía pura y la vida (o el ejercicio oweniano de poesía pura)''] (Spanish), 2011. * Cynthia Araceli Ramírez Peñaloza: [https://web.archive.org/web/20151101203314/http://fuenteshumanisticas.azc.uam.mx/revistas/50/50_07.html ''Gilberto Owen, escritor y editor enfocado en las mujeres''] (Spanish), 2015. * Celene García Ávila y Antonio Cajero Vázquez (2009), ''Gilberto Owen en El tiempo de Bogotá, prosas recuperadas (1933-1935)''
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * (Spanish), Miguel Ángel Porrúa /Universidad autónoma del Estado de México, México. {{ISBN|978-607-401-078-7}} . Print. * {{IAI|489975410}} * {{IMDb title|qid=Q129687219|id=tt0291205|title=Gilberto Owen, un poeta olvidado}} * {{IMDb title|qid=Q129687219|id=tt0291205|title=La revista Esfuerzo, inicios periodísticos de Gilberto Owen}}, https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/104/10414216.pdf
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Owen, Gilberto}} Category:1904 births Category:1952 deaths Category:20th-century Mexican journalists Category:20th-century Mexican male journalists Category:20th-century Mexican male writers Category:20th-century Mexican poets Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery (Yeadon, Pennsylvania) Category:Deaths from cirrhosis Category:Mexican diplomats Category:Mexican expatriates in Colombia Category:Mexican expatriates in Ecuador Category:Mexican expatriates in the United States Category:Mexican male poets Category:Writers from Sinaloa Category:People from El Rosario, Sinaloa