The 1930s marked the beginning of modern Ecuadoran literature. Unlike their predecessors, who viewed literature as a pastime of cultural refinement detached from everyday reality, Ecuador's writers of the Generation of 1930, and in particular those who formed the Grupo de Guayaquil (Joaquín Gallegos Lara, José de la Cuadra, Demetrio Aguilera Malta, and Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco), created a literature of social realism in which the world of the exploited and impoverished masses of Ecuador became the centerpiece of the most important literary works of the period. By abandoning a literary tradition of exotic places and European fashion, the new writers aspired to create a genuinely Ecuadoran literature in its language, themes, and characters. From the time of his emergence as one of the original members of the Grupo de Guayaquil, Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco was among the most influential writers of Ecuador's modern period. For more than...