Hernn Daz Arrieta

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Notable

Chilean writer, film critic and memoirist, widely known by his pen name, Alone, who won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1959. He became well known for his fluid and distinct style, and is considered to be the greatest Chilean prose writer of the mid-20th century. Despite receiving little formal training, he began his literary career at an early age. In 1913, he published two stories in the journal Pluma y Lapiz under the pseudonym Alone. He published his only novel in 1915 before devoting his attention to literary criticism. In a career spanning more than sixty years, Alone wrote for a wide array of newspapers and periodicals, penning, most notably, the column "Crónica Literaria," which first appeared in La Nación and later in El Mercurio. He had a 25 year career in the Ministry of Justice eventually becoming the head of the Civil Registry. Despite his vehement opposition to Communism, he nevertheless was an outspoken admirer of the poet Pablo Neruda who was a prominent member of the Communist Party of Chile. He was a staunch catholic and supporter of the right-wing political movement that culminated in the 1973 overthrow of the leftist President of Chile, Salvador Allende. Alone lived his whole life in the same residence, a house he obtained with a mortgage at the beginning of his career in the Civil Service. Nearly blind and unable to speak, Alone died on 24 January 1984 at the age of 92. Link to Wikipedia biography