Carlos Francisco Chang Marín or Changmarín (February 26, 1922 – December 5, 2012[1]) was a Panamanian folklorist, painter, musician, journalist, activist and writer of poetry, essays and children's literature.
His work usually mixes descriptions of the Ibero-American countryside and simple life beauty with naive humour and optimism with proletarian revolution conclusions and tone.
Changmarín was born in Los Leones, Santiago de Veraguas, Panama, being the second son of an out-of-wedlock union between Carlos Chang, a rich, Chinese-Panamanian merchant, and Faustina Marin, a campesina.
His aunt was brutally abusive, treating him basically as a slave, constantly humiliating his mixed heritage and his mother's social status.
One of these jobs included working at the Panama Canal under the supervision of U.S. managers, where he witnessed the unfair and abusive conditions between the U.S. personnel and the non-U.S. workers.
Between 1940 and 1950, Changmarín worked as a teacher in several provinces, where he organized the student movement in strikes to denounce key issues regarding the country's social problems.
Until his death from stomach cancer, Changmarín lived in his birth town of Santiago de Veraguas with his companion Eneida Romero.
While still in college, he received an honored mention for his participation in the 1942 Ricardo Miró National Awards with a submission of a book containing poetry entitled Punto e' llanto.
[3] As are most of his works, the short stories are highly political in nature, describing and portraying historical events, as seen in his compendium Noche Buena Mala.
When not being used as a way to deliver and expose political, historical and eco-humanistic paradigms, his short stories have been described to be highly emotional and profoundly radical in form.
It has been described as written by bursts of raw emotions;[4] an anti-story,[5] and as the first Panamanian short story that could be used to formulate a theory regarding the creative writing process.
[7] Changmarín alluded to Victoriano Lorenzo in almost all his larger works for adults and children in an effort to place him as a founding father of Panama.
Having published several books dedicated to reach the youth, Changmarín tries to deliver his social messages in order to promote human sensibilities and awareness to all ages.
Using attractive illustrations (hand-drawn by himself) and a short-chapter format to ease the interest of young readers, Changmarín has published in several fields, from poetry to history books.
He is highlighted among several others (Milciades Amores C, Mario Riera Pinilla, Alejandro Chock Valdés, Gonzalo Castro, René González and Eustolio Darío Him) as a pioneer of the Prensa Chica ("small press") movement in Panama, with his participation in El Cholo newspaper.
His interest in this field is related to his folklore research and he has been promoting the recognition of this form of expression of the countryside people for more than half a century.
Changmarín's political activism reached an important moment in his life with the foundation of the Panamanian Communist Party (Partido del Pueblo) in 1950.
The Panamanian government reacted to the growing dissent and communist organization in the countryside by increasing repression, reaching the extremes of perpetrating political assassinations and disappearances.
The décima, having a bard-like effect as an artistic expression and Changmarín having mastered the form, managed to merge it with the social angst-ridden echoes of the dispossessed and the nationalist feelings of the people to "incense a protest in each fist and a march in each step".
Moreover, he expressed an integrated relationship between culture and nature, rejecting the industrial Western concept of progress, instead promoting the philosophy of simple life.