Creator Bio
Jorge Isaacs
1837–1895
The son of an English Jew who had converted to Christianity and famously bought his Colombian citizenship from Simón Bolívar by paying him with cows, Jorge Isaacs was perhaps the most famous Latin American novelist of the nineteenth century. His father, at first a successful merchant, lost his fortune in the Colombian upheavals, and Isaacs was forced to work a variety of odd jobs to support himself, in addition to taking up arms in Colombia’s numerous wars and revolts. Originally a poet, Isaac’s novel María is considered a seminal work in Latin American literature and Spanish romanticism. He later pursued a career in journalism and politics.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
María
When my father made his last trip to the Antilles, Salomón, a cousin of his whom he had loved since childhood, had just lost his wife. At a very young age, they had come together to South America…