Porfirio Martinez Penaloza

Vocation

Mexican journalist, poet, writer, translator and academic. He specialized in handicrafts and folk cultures of Mexico, of which he was a persistent national and international promoter. He taught at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), was researcher at the Center for Literary Studies of the UNAM, and assistant at the Department of Literature of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA). In 1961, he was deputy chief of the Department of National Handicraft Cooperative Development Bank, thereafter became interested in studying and promoting Mexican folk art. He was a member of the Advisory Council of Mexico to Unesco, he participated in the Meeting of Governmental Experts for the Safeguarding of Folklore held in Paris. As a journalist he worked for the cultural sections of newspapers News, El Nacional, El Sol de Mexico, Excelsior and Graphic News. He worked also for various magazines, journals and newsletters. He co-founded the magazine Michoacana Vieñetas of the journal Literature and Trivium. He used the pseudonyms of Dr. Theofrastro Amoeba, Gabriel Lopez, and Jiminy Cricket. He was elected full member of the Mexican Academy of Language on 29 August 1975, he took up the chair XXV on August 27, 1976 with the speech "Parnassus, lyres and troubadours. An approach". In 1989, the government of the city of Morelia awarded the "Generalissimo Morelos" Medal. He died in Mexico City on 26 August 1992. Link to Wikipedia biography (Spanish)