Manlio Argueta, a Salvadorean Writer.

Manlio Argueta was born in San Miguel (El Salvador), on November 24, 1936. Argueta is a salvadorean writer, critic, and novelis. Although he considers himself first and foremost a poet, he is known in the English speaking world for his book "One Day of life".

Argueta has stated that his exposure to "poetic sounds" began diring his chilhood and that his fundation in poetry stemmed from his childhood imagination. Argueta began his witing career by the age of 13 as a poet. He cites Pablo Neruda and García Lorca as some of his early poetic influences. Although, he was relatively unknown at the time, Argueta won a national prize for his poetry around 1956, which gained him some recognition among Salvodorean and central american poets. He was exiled to Costa Rica in 1972 because of his writings criticizings the government, He was not able to retun to El Salvador until the 1990s. Argueta currently lives in El Salvador where he holds the position of Director of National Public Library.

Some of Argueta´s works include El valle de las hamacas, Un hombre por la patria, En el costado de la luz, Caperucita en la zona roja (Little red riding hood in the red light distric), Un día en la vida (One day of life), Milagro de la paz ( A place called Milagro de paz). A characteristic of Argueta´s witing style present in the majority of his works is the use of salvadorean spanish vernacular and slang. He considers this a way to express and preserve some of El Salvador`s cultural identity.