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Fernando Botero

Fernando González Ochoa

Corporación Otraparte

Fernando González Ochoa

By Albeiro Rodas - Desined by Gustavo Restrepo (Otraparte Cultural Corporation)

Fernando González Ochoa (1895 - 1964), known as "The Philosopher of Otraparte" or "El Brujo de Otraparte", was a writer and philosopher and he is considered by many as one of the most important thinkers of his time in Colombia for his writings of controversy and analysis. He questioned the social hypocrisy and for this reason he was rejected very often and even forgotten. However, his works are becoming again an active matter of studies.  

He used a very original way to compose his thinking with the words of the simple and called himself a master, but not looking for disciples but lonely ones, because he used to say that only in loneliness we can find authenticity.  

González Ochoa was born on April 14, 1895 in Envigado, a city of the Aburrá Valley in the nowadays Metropolitan Area of Medellín. He did his first studies in a religious school of his town, with the Sisters of the Presentation, but he was expelled from that school. His high school was made in the Saint Ignatius College of Medellín, but he was expelled from that place also when he was in 5th grade because he dared his teacher of philosophy, Rev. Quiroz, used to read Nietzsche and did not follow the disciplinary rules.

After this expulsion he started to write "Pensamientos de un viejo" (The Thoughts of an Oldman) that was published in 1916. In 1917 he was graduated in Law from University of Antioquia, but his thesis, "El derecho a no obedecer" (The Right Not To Obbey), was censured by the administration of the university and he has to do some modifications in order to get the diploma. 

In 1922 he got married with Margarita Restrepo Gaviria, the daughter of former president Carlos E. Restrepo, who would become one of his friends. They had four sons and a daugther: Alvaro, Ramiro, Pilar, Fernando and Simon. He worked as Judge in Manizales and Medellín and, finally, Consul of Colombia in Marseille-France, Bilbao-Spain and Rotterdam. 

His most active time of writing was between 1929 and 1941, a time where he knew many friends from the national and international intellectual world like Gabriela Mistral, Azorín, Miguel de Unamuno, José María Velasco Ibarra, Jean Paul Sartre, Thornton Wilder, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Gabriela Mistral, Andrés Ripol and many others who admired the work of González.

He bought a house in his native Envigado, the same that belonged before to his great grand father by mother linage, Lucas de Ochoa, and built a beautiful house of Spanish style with the help of the well-known architect Carlos Obregón, the engineer Felix Mejía Arango and the painter and engineer Pedro Nel Gómez. He gave to the house the name of "Otraparte" (Other Place) and in that place he received the visit of several persons, from young people to fampus personalities like Manuel Mejía Vallejo, Carlos Castro Saavedra and Gonzalo Arango.

References

Visit the official site of Otraparte Cultural Corporation.

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