Call Number:

C0278

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

24.21 linear feet ((44 containers))

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); J. G. Cobo Borda Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1951-2018 (inclusive)

Creator:

Cobo Borda, J. G., 1948-

Form:

Correspondence., Manuscripts., and Photographs.

Abstract:

Consists of personal and working papers of Cobo Borda, a Colombian poet, essayist, journalist, and diplomat, primarily manuscript poems and essays as well as correspondence, spanning the period from 1970 to 2017. There are also manuscripts of speeches and interviews, nonfiction works, documents, photographs, a few papers of others, scrapbooks, and a small amount of printed material.

Juan Gustavo (J. G.) Cobo Borda was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1948. His primary, secondary, and university education was obtained in Bogotá. He studied at two universities there: Universidad de los Andes and Universidad Nacional from 1966 to 1970. He was a manager of the Librería Buchholz (a bookstore) in Bogotá from 1970 to 1975. Cobo Borda has been a published poet since the early 1970s ( Consejos para sobrevivir, 1974) and since the mid-1970s, he has pursued a career in government service while writing poetry and essays, and directing two magazines, Eco and Gaceta, in the period, 1973-1984. He also founded and directed the magazine Revista Cancilleria de San Carlos (No. 1-No. 14) from 1990 to 1992.

Cobo Borda began his career in government by serving as assistant to the director of the Instituto Colombiano de Cultura (Bogotá) from 1975 to 1978. He was appointed subdirector of the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) from 1978 to 1982. In 1983, he was named "Agregado Cultural" (cultural attaché) for the Embassy of Colombia in Argentina. He worked and resided in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 1983 to 1989. In 1990, he returned to Bogotá to work as subdirector of Cultural Affairs for the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Colombia, and in 1992, he was named cultural attaché for the Embassy of Colombia in Madrid, Spain. He served in Spain from 1992 to 1994. In 1994, he was appointed "Asesor Cultural" (cultural advisor) by the incoming president of Colombia, Ernesto Samper Pizano (1994-).

J. G. Cobo Borda was elected to permanent membership in the Academia Colombiana de la Lengua in 1993. In addition to having written many books of poetry and essays, he has written extensively for newspapers and literary magazines published in Latin America and Spain. He also founded and directed the magazine Gaceta from 1975 to 1982, published by the Instituto Colombiano de Cultura in Bogotá, Colombia. He also served as director of the magazine Eco, published by the Librería Buchholz in Bogotá, from 1973 to 1984. The author currently lives in Bogotá and is married to an Argentinian, Griselda Díaz. He has two daughters, Natalia (from an earlier marriage) and Paloma, born in 1993.

The collection consists of personal and working papers of Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda, Colombian poet, journalist, and diplomat: notebooks, manuscripts of poems, nonfiction writings, speeches and interviews, correspondence, documents, photographs, papers of others, and printed material.

The collection primarily contains manuscript poems, nonfiction, and speeches and interviews, dating from the 1970s to 2011, and correspondence from 1969 through 2011. The strengths of the collection are the autograph and typescript manuscript poems which document the author's creative process in writing poetry, numerous nonfiction manuscripts on primarily Colombian literature and art, and correspondence with other Latin American authors.

Cobo Borda's poetry in manuscript form includes poems which are included in the anthologies Todos los poetas son santos, published by Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1977, and El animal que duerme en cada uno y otros poemas, published by El áncora Editores in 1995. The poems in the collection which are labeled "Poeta en Tokio" probably appear in published form in Poemas orientales y bogotanos (1991). There are also manuscript poems for two books, Furioso amor and Amor absoluto, tentatively scheduled for publication in 1997. Of his nonfiction books, there are manuscripts for Obregón (on Colombian painter Alejandro Obregón), Fabulas y leyendas de El Dorado, Cultura y violencia a través de la obra de García Márquez, and Desocupado lector.

In his role as director of the cultural magazine Eco from 1973-1984, Cobo Borda corresponded with many Latin American writers and cultural figures. Representative authors in the Correspondence series are Octavio Paz, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, Germán Arciniegas, literary critics Angel Rama, Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot and Martha Canfield, Argentinian novelists Manuel Puig and Angélica Gorodischer and poet Enrique Molina, Colombian novelists Darío Ruiz Gómez and Darío Jaramillo Agudelo, and poets and essayists José Emilio Pacheco, José Kozer, Juan Liscano, Elkin Restrepo, Alvaro Mutis, Guillermo Sucre, and José Luis Díaz Granados. The collection also includes a large amount of correspondence with publishers, editors, and literary agents. Publishing firms represented in the correspondence include Editorial Seix Barral, Fondo de Cultura Económica, and El áncora and Monte Avila Editores. There is substantial correspondence with publishers or editors Pere Gimferrer, Jaime García Terrés, Vicente Gerbasi, Eugenio Montejo, and others.

The collection also includes curriculum vitae of J. G. Cobo Borda; photographs of Cobo Borda and others covering the period 1985-1996; a few papers of others, most notably, seven nonfiction articles by José Bianco, dated 1973-1984; and printed material, including published poems of Cobo Borda and several articles about the author.

Furthermore, there is a series of minimally processed additional papers which contain notebooks, manuscripts, general and diplomatic correspondence, photographs, video cassettes, audio cassettes, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous materials.