Antonio Skármeta
Artist
Biography
Antonio Skármeta (1940–2024) was a Chilean writer, screenwriter and director, born in Antofagasta. He taught literature at the University of Chile from 1967 until the 1973 military coup, after which he left Chile, living in Buenos Aires and later West Berlin. His 1985 novel Ardiente paciencia (Burning Patience) inspired the Academy Award-winning film Il Postino. He returned to Chile in 1989, hosted a popular television programme on literature and the arts, served as Chile’s ambassador to Germany from 2000 to 2003, and received the Chilean National Literature Prize in 2014.