Mexican author Amparo Dávila passes away

Mexican writer Amparo Dávila , one of Mexico's best short-story writers, has passed away at 92 years of age.

Born in Zacatecas in 1928 , she wrote narrative and poetry . Her short stories are considered among the most particular in Mexico during the 20th century and have been included in several anthologies of the literary genre.

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She belonged to what some call the Mid-century Generation . Dávila is one of the few Mexican storytellers whose literature goes beyond reality without being fantastic .

Although she began her literary career writing poetry, she then focused in narrative. Some of her books are Tiempo destrozado (Broken Time), Música concreta (Concrete Music), and Árboles petrificados (Petrified Trees), with which she won the Xavier Villaurrutia Award in 1977.

Amparo Dávila is considered one of the most important figures in Mexican and Latin American literature , often compared to authors like Inés Arredondo, Guadalupe Dueñas, Juan José Areola, and Jorge Luis Borges.

Two years ago, at the celebration of her 90th anniversary, she said “I still write. I want to publish short poems , poems from the past and the present, and then several texts. One is about Pinos, Zacatecas, the other is about of my death.”

In 2018, the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) organized several activities in the Palace of Fine Arts and the “Xavier Villaurrutia” Literary Creation Center to address the figure of the short-story writer as an influence for new generations.

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In that regard, Dávila said, “I’m really happy that young people write horror or any kind of literature , as long as it is good literature , not only based on intelligence; I don’t believe in pure intelligence; I believe in sensitivity .”

Bacl then, Amparo Dávila shared a fragment of the unpublished text called “La semblanza de mi muerte:”

“May I not die on a cloudy and cold Winter day and leave shivering from cold and fear into the unknown, that world of shades. Not like that. A faceless being walking endlessly by my side or that awaits around the corner. And that unfathomable mystery that we cannot uncover and that anguishes and disrupts existence. I want to leave in a sunny day of a green Spring full of sprouts and birds and flowers to look for my Garden of Eden, my lost paradise and enjoy the fruit of the vine and the fig tree, the perfume of the blossomed cherry and orange trees, the warmth of the sun that never sets.”

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