Background
Mr. Adoum was born in Ambato, Ecuador, on June 29, 1926, of Lebanese ancestry.
Mr. Adoum was born in Ambato, Ecuador, on June 29, 1926, of Lebanese ancestry.
Jorge Enrique Adoum was mainly known as a writer. He also worked as director of Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana (publishers), national director of Ecuadorian culture, and secretary of Institute of Theatre and Folklore in Ecuador.
Mr. Adoum was Pablo Neruda's personal secretary for nearly two years in Chile. In 1963 he traveled to Egypt, India, Japan and Israel, with a grant from UNESCO's Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values. Unable to return to Ecuador because of the military dictatorship of 1964-1966, he worked in the Popular Republic of China. From 1964-1986 he worked in Beijing (China) and then in Geneva and Paris. In 1987 he returned to his homeland.
Mr. Adoum worked mainly as a writer. He worked as a director of Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana (publishers), national director of Ecuadorian culture, and secretary of Institute of Theatre and Folklore in Ecuador.
Adoum Jorge Enrique died at the age of 83 of heart failure in Quito on July 3, 2009. His ashes were buried under "The Tree of Life" next to the ashes of his close friend Oswaldo Guayasamín, beside Guayasamín's home in the hills overlooking Quito.
(Novela cuyo autor califica de antiburguesa, antimilitaris...)
(El autor nos deja ver la vida parisina de un pintor ecuat...)
(No son todos los que están: Poemas, 1949-1979 (Bibliotec...)
(El amor desenterrado y otros poemas (Colección Ecuador/l...)
(Sin ambages: Textos y contextos (Colección País de la m...)
(Mirando a todas partes (Seix Barral Los tres mundos-Ensay...)
(Los amores fugaces: Memorias imaginarias (Biblioteca brev...)
(El tiempo y las palabras (Colección Antares) (Spanish Ed...)
(--ni están todos los que son: Poesía (Spanish Edition) ...)
As a teenager Jorge Enrique Adoum tried to join the Communist Party of Ecuador but was turned down because he was too young. He was a believer of communist ideology. The name "Marx" in the title of his most famous book "Between Marx and a Naked Woman" refers to Karl Marx the author of The Communist Manifesto.
In 2006, Adoum signed a petition in support of the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States of America.
In 1948 Adoum married Magdalena Jaramillo Cabezas with whom he had 2 daughters. He later divorced Magdalena. Mr. Adoum married Nicole Rouan from Gimel in 1977. They first met in Geneva in 1970 when Nicole was an actress in the French-version of his new play "El sol bajo las patas de los caballos". Nicole translated Mr. Adoum's work into French. She died on July 13, 2011.
He was Lebanese and migrated to Ecuador where he made Arabic-to-Spanish translations, painted, sculpted, composed music, practiced natural medicine, and wrote more than 40 volumes on occult sciences and masonry which he signed with the pseudonym "Mago Jefa". He also had a private practice for hypnotism, magnetism and suggestion, and made numerous healings considered miraculous in his time.
