Career
He was also an author of poems, dramas, novels, essays. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967. In 1952, Zalamea fled Colombia to escape the repressive regime of president Laureano Gómez.
Later that year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he published one of his most influential works, El gran Burudún-Burundá ha muerto, a satirical work denouncing Gómez.