The writer Xavier Abril was born in Lima on November 4, 1905 . He was the son of Carlos Abril Borgoño and Amalia de Vivero Merino, who formed a traditional family with extensive cultural interests. He begins his studies at the German school, between 1911 and 1923; there he has as partners Estuardo Núñez, Emilio A. Westphalen and Martín Adán. He finishes his instruction at the San Agustín school and at the Lima Institute. At the age of 19 he prints the magazine Pegaso , which published a single issue. He frequents the select cultural circle of the poet José María Eguren, in Barranco. From 1926 to 1930 he collaborated in the magazine Amauta by Jose Carlos Mariategui. In 1926 he moved to Spain. There he will study various subjects at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, in Madrid, until 1927. He participates enthusiastically in the cultural life of the time, making frequent visits to the Prado Museum. In July of that year he made a trip to Paris, which would be decisive.
Back to Peru
He returns to Peru in 1928. He enters the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos and the Faculty of Letters (1929). Dissatisfied with the prevailing teaching, he returns to Europe. He lives in Spain for the second time (1930). He then collaborates assiduously in the magazine Bolívar , founded and directed by his brother Pablo. At the same time he publishes his literary criticism in El Sol and Ediciones Ulises launches the first edition of his book titled Hollywood (1931), a poetic novel that has been compared to The Cardboard House by Martin Adam. The same year he is appointed co-editor of the magazine Front -trilingual magazine- edited in Amsterdam.
Life in Europe and America
In 1932 he spends the summer between Lisbon and Estoril, where he corrects the proofs of his work Difficult work , which three years later would be published by the Plutarco publishing house in Madrid. That year he would get to know Spanish Morocco and Tangier. He founded (1933), in the company of Rafael Alberti, the magazine October , of socialist tendency and prologues the work Consignas of the mentioned Andalusian poet. Xavier Abril collaborates in various Spanish newspapers, such as Frente, Pueblo and Mundo Obrero . When the revolutionary general strike occurs in Madrid and the rest of Spain, the assault guards destroy his books and originals. He is ordered to leave the peninsula. He leaves for Paris at the end of 1934. He frequents the surrealist poets Andró Bretón and Paul Eluard. On February 16, 1936, on the eve of the Spanish elections, he published a message addressed to intellectuals, in order to mobilize them for the political struggle . In Morocco he visits Ceuta, Tetouan, Tangier, Fez and Casablanca. He returns to Madrid and offers a reading of his poems and a conference on them at El Ateneo de Madrid.
When he prepares a new trip to Paris, the Spanish civil war breaks out. In France he writes his war notes. In Lima he published in 1937 his book of poems Discovery of the dawn . The book was selected by the great Irish novelist James Joyce when he had to significantly reduce his library; after his death it was still there. In 1938 Cesar Vallejo died. Xavier Abril organizes in Lima (1940) a tribute to his memory in the auditorium of the Campo de Marte , with the participation of the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Theo Buchwald. He will leave the following year for Chile, invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the neighboring country. He tours the entire southern tip of the country. At the end of 1941 he leaves for Buenos Aires, where he is entertained by the Pen Club, along with Baldomero Fernández Moreno and Conrado Nalé Roxlo. He returns to Peru via the Strait of Magellan.
Residence in Uruguay
In 1950 he visited Montevideo for the first time, where he would live until his death. He marries the Uruguayan painter Sara Acosta. He will serve as the cultural attache of the Peruvian embassy, ad-ho-norem from 1958 to 1972, and contracted from 1972 until his death.
Works by Xavier Abril
Distinguished writers such as Jean Cassou, Jules Supervielle, Marcel Brion, Benjamín Jarnés and Melchor Fernández Almagro have studied his work with admiration. The Colombian poet Eduardo Carranza has given the following opinion about the poetry of Abril:“Two of his books, Difícil Trabajo and Discovery of the Dawn, constitute the most beautiful surrealist documents in the Spanish language. There the attempt and adventure of Eluard and André Bretón is fully achieved (...) A thorough knowledge of European literature and an exemplary classical and humanistic training lend Xavier Abril's poetry a successful atmosphere of clarity and an exact expression without hesitation”.
April has been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Russian and Greek. His name is included in the main anthologies of avant-garde Latin American poetry. . In Lima he has collaborated in the newspapers La Prensa and The Weather . April's bibliography is made up of:Hollywood (Madrid, 1931); Hard work (Madrid, 1935), a book that brings together his poetic production from 1923 to 1935; Discovery of the dawn (Lima, 1937), considered by many to be his best work; Anthology of César Vallejo (Buenos Aires, 1942); Bob Gesinus painting (with Ernesto Sábato, Buenos Aires, 1949); Vallejo:critical approach essay (Buenos Aires, 1958); Brief anthology of modern Latin American poetry (White Bay, 1960); Two studies:Vallejo and Mallarmé (White Bay, 1960); César Vallejo or poetic theory (Madrid, 1963); Eguren, the dark one (Cordoba, 1970); Trilcic exegesis (Lima, 1980); Declaration of our days (Montevideo, 1987); The written rose (Montevideo, 1988). The posthumous production of Abril is considerable and includes 55 years of trade, from "committed" poetry to hermetic and suggestive poems, with traces of traditional Spanish poetry, that of the Golden Age and "pure" French poetry. Jorge Kishimoto -literary executor of the poet- has edited the surrealist novel El automata -written in the thirties-, in the anthology Narrativa peruana de vanguard (Lima, 1993). The Uruguayan writer María Luz Canosa published in Montevideo in 1994 the book Unpublished poetry (1921-1976), which includes the poetry collections Experience of Paris (1927-1935), Portraits of women (1934), The Great Oneiric (1945), The Dark Statue (1949), Pause (1951-1957) and To the Swan (1958), in addition to other loose poems. Unpublished poems and an abundant correspondence with the most outstanding figures of the avant-garde in America and Europe have yet to be published.
Xavier Abril died on January 1, 1990 in Montevideo (Uruguay) and, shortly before, he was decorated by the government of Peru, in consideration of his tireless contribution to the national culture .