Vicente Huidobro

Vicente García-Huidobro Fernández (January 10, 1893 – January 2, 1948) was a Chilean poet born to an aristocratic family. He is known for promoting the Avant-garde literary movement in Chile, and the creator and greatest exponent of the literary movement called Creacionismo ("Creationism").

Life and work

Early years

Huidobro was born into a wealthy family from Santiago, Chile. He spent his first years in Europe, and was educated by French and English governesses. Once his family was back in Chile, Vicente was enrolled at the Colegio San Ignacio, a Jesuit secondary school in Santiago, where he was expelled for wearing a ring that he claimed was a wedding ring.

In 1910 he studied literature at the Instituto Pedagogico of the University of Chile, but a good part of his knowledge of literature and poetry came from his mother, poet María Luisa Fernández Bascuñán. She used to host "tertulias" or salons in the family home, where sometimes up to 60 people came to talk and listen her talk about literature, with guests including members of the family, servants, maids and a dwarf. Later, in 1912, she would help him financially and emotionally to publish his first magazine "Musa Joven" (Young Muse).