González, Manuel Pedro, 1893-

Biography

Manuel Pedro González was Professor of Spanish American Language and Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1924 until 1958. He was born on November 27, 1893 in the Canary Islands and died in July 1974 in Del Mar, California. Educated in Cuba, he received a BA degree at the Havana Institute in 1916, his J.D. at the University of Havana Law School in 1920, and his Ph.D in 1922. He was an instructor of Spanish Literature at San Anacleto College in Havana in 1918, and at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland from 1923-24. Among his awards were the Diploma of Honor of the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua in 1939; elected corresponding membership to the Circulo de Altos Estudios Históricos, Rosario, Argentina, 1936; elected membership to the Sociedad Cubana de Estudios Históricos e Internacionales, Havana, 1942; and elected corresponding membership to the Academia Cubana de la Lengua in 1954. He was the founder and first president of the International Institute of Professors of Ibero-American Literature from 1938-40. Under the Institute's sponsorship, he organized the 2 nd International Congress of Professors of Ibero-American Literature at UCLA in 1940. The Institute began publishing in 1941 Revista Iberoamericana, which he co-edited from 1949 to 1953. The journal was the first to represent the entire panorama of Latin American literature. In 1967/68 he established the Fundación José Martí in Havana in honor of the 19 th century Cuban patriot and poet who led the Cuban revolt for independence from Spain. The following year he started the Anuario Martiano, a journal devoted to scholarly studies and bibliography on Martí written anywhere in the world. He wrote a total of seven books on Martí as well as numerous articles. He has been credited with establishing Martí as the initiator of the Modernist movement, which is now often dated by the appearance of Ismaelillo in 1882, Martí's first published collection. González is also noted for his work on Argentine and Mexican literature, and on intellectual relations between the United States and Spanish America.

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