Jorge Isaacs

Jorge Isaacs
Miniature portrait of Jorge Isaacs by Víctor Moscoso.
Ethnicity	Judeo-Colombian
Period	1859–1895
Genre	Costumbrismo, poetry
Subject	Novel
Literary movement	Romanticism
Notable works	María

Jorge Isaacs Ferrer (April 1, 1837 – April 17, 1895) was a Colombian writer, politician and soldier. His only novel, María, became one of the most notable works of the Romantic movement in Spanish-language literature.

His father was George Henry Isaacs, an English Jew originally from Jamaica. He first settled in Chocó, Colombia, where he made a fortune from gold mining and trade with Jamaica. He then moved to Cali where he converted to Christianity, bought his Colombian citizenship from Simon Bolivar and paid for it in cows. (There is a plaque on a bridge north of Bogota to commemorate this.) He married Manuela Ferrer Scarpetta, daughter of a Spanish Navy officer. He also owned two haciendas near Cali, called "La Manuelita" (named after his wife) and "El Paraíso". The latter would provide the setting for María. "El Paraiso" has been preserved as a museum, with emphasis upon its relation to the novel.

Jorge Isaacs was born in Quibdo in 1837. He was first educated in Cali, then in Popayán and, finally, in Bogotá between 1848 and 1852.

Isaacs returned to Santiago de Cali in 1852 without finishing his baccalaureate studies. In 1854 he fought for seven months in the Cauca Campaign against the dictatorship of General José María Melo. In 1856 Isaacs married Felisa González Umaña, who was fourteen years-old at the time and they went on to have many children.

During the time of the civil wars his family went through a period of economic hardship. Isaacs tried unsuccessfully to become a merchant as his father. He then turned to literature and wrote his first poems between 1859 and 1860. During that time he also wrote several dramas of historical theme. Isaacs took arms again in 1860, this time against General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, and saw action in the Battle of Manizales during the Colombian Civil War. In 1861 Isaacs' father died; when the war ended Isaacs returned to Cali to take over the administration of his father's businesses, but he found them deeply in debt. This forced him to auction off two of his father's haciendas "La Rita" and "La Manuelita", which were bought by the industrialist Santiago Eder.