| José María Sánchez | |
| Birth Name: | José María Sánchez Borbón |
| Birth Date: | 1918 7, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Solarte Island, Bocas del Toro, Panama |
| Death Place: | Panama City, Panama |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Alma Mater: | Universidad de Panama |
| Period: | 1937–1973 |
| Genre: | Short stories |
| Relatives: | Guillermo Sánchez Borbón, Olga Sánchez |
José María Sánchez Borbón (Solarte Island, 25 July 1918 – Panama City, 8 November 1973), was a Panamanian writer and politician.[1] [2]
He was born on Solarte Island, in the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, on July 25, 1918. Sánchez Borbón attended primary school in San Jose, Costa Rica. In 1938 he graduated from the Instituto Nacional de Panama as Bachelor in Literature and then as lawyer at the University of Panama.[3]
He worked in his father's business in Bocas del Toro during the 1940s and 1950s. He joined the Panamanian government from 1956 to 1968. During the 1960s, Sánchez was Panamanian ambassador to Colombia and Argentina.
His short stories, some of them translated to German, French, English and Russian, are of importance to Panamanian literature. He began publishing in 1937. He "showed the validity of the social" as well as regional themes in the national literature, at that time oriented towards the avant-garde.
"With José María Sánchez the region imposes its presence [to the Nation]. His short-stories are a faithful transcript of the adventures of his native land, Bocas del Toro. On a physical landscape of plural violence – rain, forest, sea -, economic and demographic factors concur to offer us a special sociological precipitate. Sánchez is the involuntary chronicler of that dramatic occurrence, where the exuberant nature and the United Fruit Company provides the terms within which move a population composed mostly of blacks from the English Antilles. His intuition of natural life and his human sympathy help to shape the fabric of his creation."--Rodrigo Miró, El cuento en Panamá".