José Asunción Silva

José Asunción Silva was born on November 27, 1865, in Bogotá into a wealthy merchant and cultured patrician family. Visiting Paris and London in 1885, Silva immersed himself in French symbolism, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé before returning to Bogotá to find his family ruined by debt following civil wars.

Tragedy hounded his life: in 1891, his beloved sister and muse Elvira died, and in 1895, a shipwreck off Barranquilla lost nearly all his unpublished manuscripts. His poem Nocturno (often called Nocturno III), with its revolutionary free rhythms and shadows of moonlight, became a world classic. Financially bankrupt and heartbroken, on May 23, 1896, he asked his physician to draw a cross over his heart in ink, shooting himself in his bed that night at age thirty. His home is now the Casa de Poesía Silva.