"Rafael Pombo is one of the great poets of Colombia, and the best exponent of romanticism in the country". Great Encyclopedia of Colombia

Rafael Pombo was a Colombian poet born in Bogota on November 7 1833. Trained as a mathematician and an engineer in a military school, Rafael Pombo served in the army and traveled to the United States of America as Secretary of the Legation in Washington. After the termination of this diplomatic position, he was hired by D. Appleton & Company in New York to translate into Spanish nursery rhymes from the Anglo-Saxon oral tradition. The product of this work, more than a translation, was a transformative adaptation published in two books under the titles Cuentos pintados para ninos and Cuentos morales para ninos formales. In spite of his extensive and diverse literary works, Rafael Pombo is mostly remembered for this contribution to children's literature. Among his most popular children's fables are Michin, Juan Chunguero, Pastorcita, La Pobre Viejecita, Simon el Bobito, El Gato Bandido, and El Renacuajo paseador. After seventeen years in the United States of America, Rafael Pombo returned to Colombia, where he worked as a celebrated translator and journalist (founding several newspapers). On August 20 1905 he was crowned as Colombia's best poet. Rafael Pombo remained in Colombia until his death on May 5 1912.

References

Entry in the Online Library of Colombia's Central Bank (Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango)
Shorter entry in the Online Library of Colombia's Central Bank (Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango)
Short Biography in the official website of the Presidency of Colombia
Entry in the Online Library of the Andes
Colombian-poets

Other pages about Colombian poets

-Jorge Isaacs -Jose Fernandez Madrid -Piedad Bonnet -Porfirio Barba-Jacob -Rafael Pombo -Zacarias Reyan

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Rafael_Pombo