Biography

Amaya was born in Olanchito

Olanchito

Olanchito is a town and municipality in the Honduran department of Yoro. Ramón Amaya Amador, a famous novelist, was born here....

 in the department of Yoro

Yoro

Yoro is the capital city of the Yoro department of Honduras....

. After being educated in La Ceiba

La Ceiba

La Ceiba is a port city on the northern coast of Honduras in Central America. It is located on the southern edge of the Caribbean, forming part of the south eastern boundary of the Gulf of Honduras...

 he worked on the banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

 plantations along the Northern Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 coast of Honduras. He published his first work in 1939. He became a journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 in 1941 for El Atlántico (The Atlantic), a La Ceiba newspaper. In October 1943 he founded a weekly magazine in Olanchito called Alerta (Alert). A leading Honduran communist fleeing from political persecution, he moved to Guatemala in 1944, where he worked there on the Nuestro Diario (Our Daily) newspaper, and was very supportive of the left-wing government of Jacobo Arbenz. In his 10 years in Guatemala he also worked for the Diario de Centro América (Central American Daily), El Popular Progresista (The Popular Progressive) and Medioía (Midday). When Arbenz regime fell in June 1954 Amador sought refuge in the Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 embassy before being granted asylum in that country. He worked there for Sarmiento, a popular educative newspaper. He also married the Argentinian Regina Arminda Funes and returned to Honduras with her in May 1957. He began working for El Cronista (The Chronicle), and found the magazine Vistazo (View) in Tegucigalpa

Tegucigalpa

Tegucigalpa , and commonly referred as Tegus , is the capital of Honduras and seat of government of the Republic, along with its twin sister Comayagüela. Founded on September 29, 1578 by the Spanish, it became the country's capital on October 30, 1880 under President Marco Aurelio Soto...

. He left Honduras with his family, including his two small children, to move to Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 in Czechoslovakia where he worked on a magazine called Problems of Peace and Socialism

Problems of Peace and Socialism

Problems of Peace and Socialism , often referred to by the name of its English-language edition World Marxist Review , was a joint theoretical and ideological journal of communist and workers parties around the world. It existed for 32 years, until closed down in June 1990. The offices of WMR were...

until he died at 50 years of age in a plane crash

TABSO Flight 101

TABSO Flight LZ101 was a scheduled service of the Bulgarian national airline from Sofia, Bulgaria via Budapest, Hungary and Prague, Czechoslovakia to East Berlin in the German Democratic Republic . The service was operated by the airline's 1960s' flagship equipment, the Ilyushin Il-18B airliner...

 in 1966 in Bratislava

Bratislava

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...

, Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

. In September 1977 his remains were returned to Tegucigalpa, but it was not until 1991 that his books were published in Honduras.

Published books

The dates are when the books were written, not when they were first published.

• Prisión verde 1945
• Amanecer 1947
• El indio Sánchez 1948
• Bajo el signo de la Paz 1952
• Constructores 1958
• El señor de la sierra 1957
• Los brujos de Ilamatepeque 1958
• Biografía de un machete 1959
• Destacamento Rojo 1960
• El camino de mayo 1963
• Cipotes 1963
• Con la misma herradura 1963
• Jacinta Peralta 1964
• Operación gorila 1965

External links

• Biography in Spanish