Carrión, Benjamin

Born Apr. 20, 1898, in Loja. Ecuadorian writer, historian of literature, and public figure.

Carrión graduated from the Central University of Ecuador in Quito in 1922. In 1932–33 he was minister of public education. From 1939 to 1949, Carrión was a professor of literature at the Central University. In the early 1950’s he served as president of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, an organization uniting the progressive creative forces of the country. Carrión wrote the novels The Disillusionment of Miguel Garcia (1929) and Why Christ Does Not Return (1963) and the collections of journalistic and philosophical essays The Creators of a New America (1928), Map of America (1930), Letters to Ecuador (1943), and Saint Gabriela Mistral (1956). He also produced works on the history of his native literature: A Survey of Modern Ecuadorian Poetry (1937) and New Ecuadorian Prose (vols. 1–2, 1951–52).