Coloane, Francisco

▪ 2003

      Chilean author (b. July 19, 1910, Quemchi, Chile—d. Aug. 5, 2002, Santiago, Chile), penned seafaring adventure tales that were wildly popular and critically praised. His stories drew on local legends and reflected the landscape of the harsh Chilean coast, particularly Tierra del Fuego, which had an unforgiving climate with which Coloane was intimately familiar. His first published works were Cabo de Hornes (1941; Cape Horn and Other Stories from the End of the World, 1991), a short-story collection, and El último grumete de “La Baquedano” (1941), a novel about a young boy aboard a warship in southern Chile. Other works included Los conquistadores de la Antártida (1945) and Golfo de penas (1945), which won the Chilean Book of the Year award. His most recent works included an autobiography, Los pasos del hombre (2000), and Naufragios (2001), a long-awaited history of shipwrecks.

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