Juan Montalvo

Born in Ambato to José marcos Montalvo and Josefa Fiallos, he studied philosophy and law in Quito before returning to his hometown in 1854. He held diplomatic posts in Italy and France from 1857 to 1859. A political liberal, Montalvo's beliefs were marked by anti-clericalism and a keen hatred for the two caudillos that ruled Ecuador during his life: Gabriel García Moreno and Ignacio de Veintemilla. After an issue of El Cosmopolita viciously attacked Moreno, Montalvo was exiled to Colombia for seven years. Moreno's assassination was attributed to Montalvo's writings. He was a dedicated champion of democracy and an enemy of the writer Juan León Mera.

In the late seventies Juan Montalvo was twice exiled to France, remaining there from 1879, as punishment for Las catilinarias (1880), the work that made him famous throughout intellectual circles in the United States, Europe and the rest of Latin America. Alongside full-length books, Montalvo was an accomplished essayist, and his Siete Tratados (1882) and Geometría Moral (published in 1902, after his death) were popular in Ecuador and were banned by Veintemilla.

He also wrote a witty sequel to Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, called Capítulos que se le Olvidaron a Cervantes ("Chapters Cervantes Forgot"), published posthumously in 1895. He died of tuberculosis in Paris. His mummified body now rests in a mausoleum in his birthplace of Ambato.

Juan Montalvo's father was Marco Montalvo Oviedo of Guano, and his mother was María Josefa Fiallos y Villacreces of Ambato. Montalvo was the youngest of 7 siblings: Francisco, Francisco Javier, Mariano, Alegría, Rosa, Juana and Isabel. Montalvo married María Guzmán Suárez in Ambato on 17 October 1868 and had two children with her. In 1882 he met Augustine Contoux with whom he had one child.[1]

Bust of Juan Montalvo in Bogotá

• Las catilinarias (1880)
• Capítulos que se le olvidaron a Cervantes (1868) - Montalvo's only novel
• Libro de las pasiones (published posthumously in 1935) contains the dramas La Leprosa, Jara, Granja, El Descomulgado and El Dictador
• Siete Tratados (1882)
• Geometría Moral (published posthumously in 1902)
• Judas (1872)

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• Pareja Diezcanseco, Alfredo (1989), Entry: "Juan Montalvo (1832-1889)"; In: Solé, Carlos A. (editor in chief) and María Isabel Abreu (associate editor), Latin American Writers - Volume 1; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 3 volumes.