page_title: Francisco Azuela
section_title: Birth and childhood
hierarchical_section_title: Francisco Azuela / Biography / Birth and childhood
caption_attribution_description: English: Young poet and writer Francisco Azuela Español: Joven escritor y poeta Francisco Azuela
context_page_description: Francisco Azuela Espinoza, is a writer and poet. He served as a diplomat in the Mexican Embassy in Costa Rica and later in Honduras. During those years The Honduran government awarded him the Order of the Liberator of Central-America Francisco Morazán, and in 1981 the Honduran Academy of Language nominated him for the Cervantes International Literature award. He later served as Director of the Library of the Chamber of Deputies of the State of Guanajuato, and became the CEO and founder of the El Condor de los Andes-Aguila Azteca AC, an international cultural center currently based in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
context_section_description: Francisco Azuela was born on March 8, 1948 at 404 General Emiliano Zapata Street in León, Guanajuato the fourth of 13 children. His father was the stationmaster of the National Railways of Mexico in Trinidad, Mexico. From his early childhood he learned of an episode of the Mexican Revolution in which a bullet fired from a train tore a chip from the gate of the Santa Ana Hacienda, causing future president Alvaro Obregón to lose an arm. Azuela grew up in Trinidad and was immersed in the rich Revolutionary history and spirit of the state of Guanajuato during his 17 years of residence there.
  Azuela comes from an artistic family of some renown: his great uncle was Mariano Azuela, author of one of the most celebrated novels of the Mexican Revolution, Los de abajo (The Underdogs); his mother, Maria Esperanza de los Dolores Espinosa Hernandez, is a writer and actress, author of several traditionalist novels, including Historia de un Gran Amor (The Story of Great Love); his father, Ricardo Azuela Martin del Campo, was a poet and nephew of Mariano Azuela.
  Some of the most enduring memories of his early life when his father taught him to read are these: when he discovered an unknown universe of old locomotives emitting steamy clouds as they passed through town; and an early acquaintance with Maya mythology and legends that later on shaped his poetic imagination. Especially memorable were the Mayan Aluxes, small fantastic creatures living in abandoned ruins and cemeteries and stories of the Chilam Balam, the sacred book of the ancient Maya.
caption: Young poet and writer Francisco Azuela
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:09:01 22:01:23", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "350", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4024", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1181", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1637"}