Javier del Granado

Francisco Javier del Granado y Granado
Born	27 February 1913 Arani, Bolivia, Arani Province, Bolivia
Died	15 May 1996 (aged 83) Cochabamba, Cercado Province (Cochabamba), Bolivia
Occupation	poet laureate, Favorite Son of Bolivia

Don Francisco Javier del Granado y Granado (27 February 1913 – 15 May 1996), was a poet laureate and favorite son of Bolivia.

Born into an aristocratic family with a rich literary pedigree, he spent most of his youth on his family's hacienda near Arani, in the department of Cochabamba, Colpa-Ciaco, a colonial-era estate in existence since the 16th century. A quiet life filled with the joys of living in the countryside greatly influenced his works, which combine epic imagery and storytelling with bucolic settings as well as rural and indigenous themes and the use, in addition to Spanish, of indigenous languages, primarily Quechua (the language of the Incas). In its turn toward native subjects as well as in its use of a formal battery of traditional forms, such as the ballad and the sonnet, his extensive body of poetry has been compared with that of Mexico's preeminent man of letters Alfonso Reyes.

Bolivia's leading poetic light achieved widespread acclaim and recognition, receiving a multitude of national and international awards over a career that spanned more than half a century. His death was marked by three national days of mourning, and his funeral was a state event. Bolivia has dedicated a plaza and two avenues (one of them, La Paz's longest boulevard) in his honour, and put up a monument to his memory.

Along with Víctor Paz Estenssoro and others, del Granado formed the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario. The MNR was at the forefront of the Bolivian Revolution of 1952, which radically changed the country, bringing about land redistribution, universal suffrage, and nationalization of the major tin mines.

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