Fabián Dobles

Fabián Dobles was born in San Antonio de Belén, but his father, a medical doctor who had trained in the United States, soon resettled the family in the rural town of Atenas, in the province of Alajuela. The father was a very strict and devout Catholic and had intended that his son Fabían prepare for the priesthood, but a series of incidents, which he would later fictionalize in his last novel, Los años, pequeños días ("Years Like Brief Days"), led Fabián to abandon that career path and to study law at the University of Costa Rica. At an early age, he saw some of his poetry published in Joaquín García Monge's influential literary magazine Repertorio Americano ("American Repertoire").

Dobles was active in left-wing political causes, eventually becoming a leading figure within the Communist Party of Costa Rica. He worked in the legal department of the state's Child Welfare Agency and later in the Social Security Administration's division for savings and subsidies. Following the defeat of the government, to which the communists were allied, in the Costa Rican Civil War of 1949, the Communist Party was outlawed and Dobles spent time in prison. After his release, he had difficulty obtaining employment and over the years worked delivering milk, weaving blankets, and as an administrator for a lumber depot and for a door and window manufacturer. An attempt to participate in the 1957 election as the presidential candidate for the "Socialist Party" was scuttled by the authorities.

Dobles eventually found work as an English teacher at the Liceo de Costa Rica, and as a professor of social work at the University of Costa Rica. He was also a correspondent for Novosti, the Soviet international press agency, and for Prensa Latina, a news agency organized by Cuban government. He also worked for the Costa Rican state publisher (Editorial Costa Rica), eventually becoming one of its directors.

Over the course of his career, Dobles published eighteen books, including eight novels, seven collections of short stories, and three tomes of poetry. For his literary production, he was awarded the Magón Prize by the Costa Rican government, the nation's highest award for cultural work, in 1968. Some of the short stories in the collection Historias de Tata Mundo ("Tales of Daddy World") were anthologized by UNESCO and translated into several languages. The University of Costa Rica published his complete works in five volumes in 1993.

Except for his last novel, Los años, pequeños días, which is autobiographical, most of Dobles's literary work concerns the struggle for subsistence of simple peasants in rural Costa Rica, or else, notably in Ese que llaman pueblo, the plight of the urban poor. Most of this work could be classified as coming under the heading of social realism.

Fabián Dobles married Cecilia Trejos in 1942 and the couple had five daughters. He died in his home in San Isidro de Heredia, at the age of 79.

• "Years Like Brief Days" translated by Joan Henry ISBN 978-0-7206-0987-5

• Ann B. González, Sí Pero No: Fabián Dobles and the Postcolonial Challenge, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8386-4051-6, ISBN 978-0-8386-4051-7.

• Fabián Dobles Rodríguez, from the Magón Prize website (in Spanish)
• El poder de la palabra (in Spanish)