Amado Muro
Amado Muro, the pen name of Chester Seltzer, was an influential writer known for his vivid and realistic short stories that reflected the struggles of the marginalized, particularly focusing on Mexicans and Chicanos. Born on September 17, 1915, in Cleveland, Ohio, Muro hailed from a literary family but experienced a tumultuous life marked by his roles as a hobo, migrant farm laborer, and conscientious objector during World War II. After a career in journalism that included positions at various newspapers, he began publishing stories under his pen name, inspired by his Mexican wife, Amada Muro. His work often portrayed the lives of the impoverished, showcasing their resilience amidst racial injustice and societal neglect.
Although he achieved recognition posthumously, with a collection of his stories published in 1979, Muro's identity as a non-Chicano writer sparked controversy. Critics were divided over his right to represent Chicano experiences, with some praising his empathetic portrayals while others accused him of cultural appropriation. Despite this, his stories garnered significant attention in literary circles, and he was celebrated for his authentic voice and commitment to social justice. Muro's legacy continues to be a topic of discussion, reflecting the complexities of identity and representation in literature.
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Subject Terms
Amado Muro
Fiction Writer
- Born: September 17, 1915
- Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio
- Died: October 3, 1971
- Place of death: El Paso, Texas
Biography
A writer of vividly realistic short stories about the underdog, stories drawn from his own experience, Amado Muro was the pen name for Chester Seltzer, born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 17, 1915. He came from a literary family, his father a famous newspaper editor and his grandfather a prolific writer of Western novels. His was a grittier life, however. After graduating from the University School in 1932, he attended the University of Virginia as a journalism major and then Kenyon College, where he studied with the poet John Crowe Ransom.
He graduated in 1936 and found a job as a sports reporter for the Miami Herald. While there he began publishing short stories as Seltzer. His main occupation remained journalism, however, and he worked for at least fifteen newspapers in Texas and the Southwest. During World War II, he was jailed twice as a conscientious objector. Ceaselessly restless, he rode railcars as a hobo, worked as a migrant farm laborer and ordinary seaman, and stayed in charity missions and hobo jungles. In 1950, he married Amada Muro of Chihuahua City, Mexico, and using the masculine version of her name as a byline began publishing stories about Mexicans and Chicanos. Although centered in El Paso, Texas, thereafter, he still rode the rails frequently until his death in 1971.
According his friend, the writer William Rintoul, Muro wrote at least twenty-nine short stories. No collection of them came out until 1979, The Collected Stories of Amado Muro. By then he was the darling of Chicano writers among literary critics. The early stories, published under his own name, presented, according to Rintoul, “a sympathetic portrayal of poor people victimized by racial injustice and harassed by police acting as agents of the affluent.” In later stories, he used himself as a character, Amado Muro, the narrator who witnesses how the poor live in the barrios of Parral, Chihuahua, and El Paso, and on the road as laborers, how they help each other, and how poverty and bias mark them. In his newspaper work, Muro wrote a Spanish-language column as well as news stories in English, and lost jobs for his outspoken pacifism during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Muro was much anthologized in the 1970’s, although he never wanted fame, and was called “a veritable Isaac Babel of the Southwest” in a New York Review of Books article. Several times his publications were listed as distinctive stories by a foreign writer in Best American Short Stories volumes. Few people knew that he was not a Chicano until well after his death. Even afterward, many critics admired his tales of the downtrodden. Not all were charmed, however. Poet Ricardo Sánchez angrily denounced Amado Muro as a swindle. Insisting that only Chicanos can write about Chicanos and Mexicans, he cited erroneous details in Muro’s stories as evidence. Nonetheless, in 1987 the El Paso Herald-Post inducted him into its writers’ hall of fame, Writers of the Pass.