page_title: Joaquín Gutiérrez
section_title: Gutiérrez's literature
hierarchical_section_title: Joaquín Gutiérrez / Gutiérrez's literature
caption_attribution_description: Español: Busto del escritor constarricense Joaquín Gutiérrez en el Paseo de los Artistas del jardín del Teatro Nacional, en San José
context_page_description: Joaquín Gutiérrez Mangel was a Costa Rican writer who won multiple awards, and whose children's book Cocorí has been translated into ten languages. In addition to writing children's books, Gutiérrez was a chess champion, war correspondent, journalist, story-teller, translator, professor, and communist activist.
context_section_description: Along with famous Costa Rican writers Fabián Dobles, Yolanda Oreamuno, Carlos Luis Fallas, and Carmen Lyra, Gutiérrez was considered a member of "the '40s Generation." All members of the communist left, these writers espoused political ideology in their writing. Most of these writers focused on social problems, such as land distribution, multinationals, and social reforms, as did Gutiérrez. Many of the writers were active military and political participants in the Costa Rican Civil War, although Gutiérrez was in the United States and Chile at the time. He became a close friend of poet Pablo Neruda, who would write an introduction to Gutiérrez's 1968 book, La hoja de aire.
  His most widely known book, Cocorí, was a short novel published in 1947. The book follows a titular character in his search for why a flower lived only one day. In 1994, the book was made required reading in Costa Rican schools. The character of Cocorí was Afro-Caribbean. The qualities he portrays in the book raised accusations of racism, notably from fellow Costa Rican author Quince Duncan, human rights activist Epsy Campbell Barr, and others working on behalf of Proyecto Caribe, an organization devoted to promoting Afro-Caribbean rights. They claimed that ugliness was associated with being of African descent and that the comparisons of the character Cocorí to monkeys create a damaging image. Guitiérrez's supporters countered that Cocorí ennobled Afro-Caribbeans. Eventually, in 2003, under the direction of Wilfrido Blanco Mora, the Ministry of Public Education dropped the requirement that Cocorí be read in public schools. For his part, when the issue of racism in Cocorí was first raised in the early 1980s, Gutiérrez said that there were no racist elements to the book. Cocorí was translated into more than 10 languages and sold more than 750,000 copies around the world.
  His novel Puerto Limón, published in 1950, took place during the United Fruit strike of 1934, a common theme of the '40s Generation authors, such as Carlos Luis Fallas. It was a coming-of-age story. Murámonos Federico, published in 1974, is a story about class struggle on a Costa Rican plantation. Gutiérrez's final book was published in 1999, a memoir called Los azules días.
caption: Statue of Gutiérrez outside the National Theater, San José
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SX230 HS", "Image Orientation": "Rotated 90 CW", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2013:12:01 15:42:37", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5620", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5399", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity and Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:12:01 15:42:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:12:01 15:42:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "1244/125", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4000", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3000", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "4822", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1000000/61", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1000000/61", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}