page_title: Tomás Carrasquilla
section_title: Writer
hierarchical_section_title: Tomás Carrasquilla / Life / Writer
caption_attribution_description: Pueblito Paisa, Medellín, Colombia.
context_page_description: Tomás Carrasquilla Naranjo was a Colombian writer who lived in the Antioquia region. He dedicated himself to very simple jobs: tailor, secretary of a judge, storekeeper in a mine, and worker of the Ministry of Public Works. He was an avid reader, and one of the most original Colombian literary writers, greatly influencing the younger generation of his time and later generations. Carrasquilla was little known in his time, according to Federico de Onís, a scholar of Carrasquilla's works. It was only after 1936, when he was already 68 years old, when he was awarded with the National Prize of Literature, that Carrasquilla got a national recognition. Tomás Carrasquilla Library Park is named in his honor.
  The Colombian civil wars of the second part of the 19th century prevented young Carrasquilla from continuing his studies at the University of Antioquia. A committed intellectual, Carrasquilla organized tertulias—social gatherings to read books and discuss them—in his Medellín house. Many young writers and intellectuals of his time joined those tertulias; from that time he was called "Maestro Tomás Carrasquilla."
context_section_description: In 1896, Carrasquilla traveled to Bogotá for the publication of his first novel, Frutos de Mi Tierra ("Fruits of my Land"), written to demonstrate that any subject can be the matter of a story, which was very well received by critics. On that trip, he came to know José Asunción Silva, to whom he would some years later dedicate the essay "For the Poet."
  He returned to Antioquia and had an accident, falling from a horse, which made him stay in Medellín for a time. When he returned to Santo Domingo, he dedicated himself to writing, until 1904, when he lost his fortune due to the Banco Popular bankruptcy. He then gained work as a storekeeper in a Sonsón gold mine until 1909.
  After Carrasquilla returned to Medellín, he had a very lively social and cultural life, associating with young intellectuals like Fernando González Ochoa, who became one of his best friend for the rest of his life. González was one of Carrasquilla's biggest admirers. Carrasquilla also knew also the cartoonist Ricardo Rendón, and the skeptic group Los Panidas (whom he supported, but never joined).
  In 1914, Carrasquilla did some work for Colombia's oldest newspaper, El Espectador, when that publication was edited in Medellín. But soon thereafter, he moved to Bogotá, where he worked for the Ministry of Public Works until 1919.
  Returning to Medellín, he continued studying literature, and in 1928 published La Marqueza de Yolombó ("The Marchioness of Yolombó"), one of the best-known works of Colombian literature.
caption: Bust of Tomás Carrasquilla in the Little Paisa Town Park in Medellín.
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