Alberto Baeza Flores (1914–1998) was a Chilean poet, writer, and journalist. Prolific and an influential sorprendista of the Poesía Sorprendida movement in Dominican Republic, he traveled throughout Latin America, Europe, and the United States, with poetic subjects ranging from the political to the social, the sentimental, from the every day mundane to the cosmic, from the transcendent to the inconsequential.
Early life
Alberto Baeza Flores was born on January 11, 1914, in Santiago, Chile to a middle-class family. He first published his poems at the age of 19 in the magazine Ecran of Santiago in 1933. This was followed by his founding the magazine Eidolon (Image) in 1934, a journal which had a short existence. He was active politically early in life. By 1936 he professed solidarity with Republican Spain; in 1937, he became affiliated with the League for the Defense of the Rights of Man; and at home he worked for the "Chilean Popular Front." Interestingly, his leftist leanings were in accordance with his Catholic upbringing and his family influences. He was never a radical or extremist. In fact, Baeza labeled himself "a Democratic Socialist, like Norman Thomas or Adlai Stevenson.
His political beliefs developed under the turbulent events of his youth (Great Depression, Hitler's rise to power, etc). He considered himself a member of the "Generation of 1938," a literary development characterized by a feeling of anguish and a need for commitment. All that Baeza has written reflects the anxiety of living in a world where technological progress has not been matched by an alleviation of human suffering. However, he has largely remained obscure, particularly in his home country, due to the fact that most of his literary work was produced outside of Chile.