Writer Carmen Bohórquez presented unpublished documents by Francisco de Miranda at FILBO 2024
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Published at: 26/04/2024 10:02 AM
The outstanding Venezuelan writer and philosopher Carmen Bohórquez, who also chairs the Francisco de Miranda Institute of Studies, marked her presence at the 36th Bogotá International Book Fair (FILBO 2024). At this important cultural event, the Creole presented volumes XXI and XXII of her Colombeia collection, which include the Archive of General Francisco de Miranda, an essential figure on the path to American independence.
For its part, issue number XXI is a compilation of archives, annotations and historical documents that cover the years 1804 and 1805, while volume XXII focuses on the year 1806, and documents Miranda's liberation expedition to the Venezuelan coast. “These documents, unpublished until now, detail the expedition since his departure from London on February 2, 1806, which marks the first military offensive against Spanish rule in America,” said Bohórquez during his conference “The Fantastic and Real Life of Francisco de Miranda”.
These volumes, co-published by the Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Simon Bolivar Study Center (CESB) and the Government of Miranda, seek to complete the work begun in 1976 by historians Josefina Rodríguez and Gloria Henríquez, who published the first twenty volumes of the collection.
Bohórquez, winner of the National Prize for Culture in the Humanities (2012) and the National History Award (2020), remembers Miranda as the pioneer in conceiving America as an indivisible political and cultural entity. Miranda's archive, which he himself compiled as a travel diary since his first departure from the country, consists of 63 volumes containing more than ten thousand documents and 31,600 pages. After being lost since 1812, it was rediscovered in 1926 by historian Caracciolo Parra Pérez.
With three volumes pending publication, the work of Bohórquez and his team is a vital testimony to the understanding of American identity and the legacy of Francisco de Miranda as a forerunner of independence in the continent.
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