Luis Carlos López

Biography

Luis Carlos López, popularly known as El Tuerto López, was a Colombian poet, born in Cartagena de Indias on June 11, 1879, into a family of merchants of distinguished but modest means. His parents were María de la Concepción Escariza Iriarte and Benito López Bessada, and he was the eldest of eleven siblings.

(Read also: Biography of Rómulo Bustos Aguirre)

He studied in local schools up to high school, adding courses in drawing and painting. Later, he began medical studies at the University of Cartagena, which he had to abandon due to the Thousand Days’ War, when he was imprisoned by the Conservative army.

Afterward, he dedicated himself to commerce in the family store López Hermanos, an activity that never satisfied him. In 1909, he married Áura Marina Cowan Tono, with whom he had three children. He pursued an active journalistic career, founding with his brothers José Guillermo and Domingo López Escauriaza the newspaper La Unión Comercial, which had a brief existence. He also collaborated in literary magazines such as Líneas and Rojo y Azul, and in newspapers like La Juventud and La Patria. After leaving the family business, he faced difficult economic times.

He belonged to the Centenarista generation of Hispanic-American postmodernism, named for publishing their first writings around 1910, the centenary of Colombia’s independence. His poetry is classified within the postmodernist reaction, particularly in its ironic and tropical vein. He was openly anti-romantic, refusing to idealize women, love, or the homeland.

(Read also: Biography of Daniel Lemaitre Tono)

From 1928, he held diplomatic posts as consul in Munich, and later, from 1937 for seven years, in Baltimore. He remained closely linked to Cartagena’s literary circles, participating in various gatherings. Many contemporaries nicknamed him El Tuerto López because of his eye condition, though in reality he was simply strabismic.

He died in Cartagena on October 30, 1950. As a tribute, in 1957 the city dedicated to him the sculpture Los zapatos viejos, created by Tito Lombana, inspired by his famous poem A mi ciudad nativa.

BOOKS (POETRY)

• Versos (1946)
• Por el atajo (1920)
• Varios a Varios (1910) en colaboración con Abraham López Penha y Manuel Cervera.
• Posturas difíciles (Madrid, 1909)
• De mi villorrio (Madrid, 1908)

TRIBUTES

• Monumento los Zapatos Viejos en Cartagena de Indias