Photo: MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty Images
the chilean writer George Edwards, author of the book “Person no grata”, winner of the Cervantes Prize in 1999 and friend of Pablo Neruda, died in Madrid (Spain) at the age of 91This is what his son told AFP.
“He died a couple of hours ago (…) It was basically a diabetes that was advancing and it caused him a state of health that had to be hospitalized for the weekend and then, back home, he died,” his son Jorge Edwards said in a phone call, from Santiago de Chile.
In addition, the writer’s son explained that Edwards will be cremated “in Spain probably on Sunday and a mass will be held in Santiago on Monday.”
reactions
Many have been the reactions that have been in social networks after the death of the writer.
“He leaves us with an exceptional novelist, a brave essayist and a journalist aware of all the layers of today. We will miss his vitality and moral high ground“, published the Cervantes Institute on its Twitter account.
Meanwhile, the Mexican essayist Enrique Krauze wrote “The admirable and endearing Chilean writer Jorge Edwards died. This year marks the 50th anniversary of ‘Persona non grata’, his great critical testimony about Cuba. How many indelible memories! I will miss it”
Cuban critic
On behalf of the government of Salvador Allende, Edwards spent three months in Havana, Cuba, in 1971, this to open the embassy of Chile. Being one of the first diplomatic meetings with Fidel Castro.
As a diplomat and writer, Edwards was able to maintain a close circle of Cuban writers who told him about the reality of life on the island.
Although he was never officially expelled from Cuba, left the island unexpectedly for Paris, where his friend Pablo Neruda, the new ambassador, requested it.
“Someone probably protested, even Fidel Castro could have picked up the phone and said (to Salvador Allende): ‘get this one out of me,'” the writer alleged in an interview with AFP in 2016.
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