Ecuadorean Essayist Juan Montalvo was called one of the finest writers of Spanish American prose of the 19th century. After a short period during which he served in his country's foreign service, Montalvo spent most of his life in exile, writing effective essays lashing out at a succession of Ecuador's dictators.
MONTALVO A POLITICAL WRITER
Montalvo a political liberal believed in anti-clericism and he had a hatred for Ecuador's two dictators that ruled during his life: Gabriel García Moreno and Ignacio de Veintemilla. After an issue of his book, El Cosmopolita, viciously attacked Moreno, Montalvo was exiled to Colombia, where he would write most of his later works. He was a dedicated admirer of democracy and was said to have a lucid and questioning intellect with a strong, semi-romantic temperament.
JUAN MONTALVO'S WRITINGS
His 1880 book Catilinarias made him famous throughout intellectual circuits in the United States, Europe and the rest of Latin America. Alongside full length books, Montalvo was a highly skilled essayist, and his Siete Tratados , Geometría Moral published in 1902, after his death were popular in Ecuador and were banned by Veintemilla. He also wrote a witty sequel to Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, called Capítulos que se le Olvidaron a Cervantes "Chapters Cervantes Forgot" in english translation. Juan Montalvo died of tuberculosis in Paris, France. His dried up body presently rests in a mausoleum in his birthplace of Ambato.
Juan María Montalvo Fiallos was an Ecuadorian author and essayist, generally thought to be one of Ecuador's best writers of the period.
