Candelario Obeso

Candelario Obeso was born on January 12, 1849, in the colonial river port of Santa Cruz de Mompox, the son of a white lawyer and an Afro-Colombian laundress. Overcoming racial barriers, he earned a scholarship to the Colegio Militar and National University in Bogotá, mastering English, French, and Italian.

In 1877, Obeso published his groundbreaking poetry collection Cantos populares de mi tierra, written entirely in the rhythmic phonetic dialect of the black river boatmen (bogas) of the Magdalena River, capturing their sorrow, manual toil, and romantic longing. He translated Shakespeare, Musset, and Longfellow into Spanish, dying tragically in Bogotá in 1884 at age thirty-five.