Germán List Arzubide

Who was Germán List Arzubide?

Germán List Arzubide was a Mexican poet and revolutionary.

Born in Puebla, he was an active participant in the Revolution, fighting alongside Emiliano Zapata as well as extolling him and other revolutionary leaders in his poetry. He was wounded and jailed three times, the first occasion providing the inspiration for his very first poem, a mocking caricature of his jailer. He wrote biographies of both Zapata and another assassinated revolutionary leader Francisco Madero. According to the poet James Kirkup, who wrote an obituary of List upon his death: "The literary work of List and his contemporaries, both poets and novelists, create the best picture of those passionate uprisings."

List Arzubide was one of the major members of Stridentism and, with Manuel Maples Arce, redacted and gave out the second stridentist manifesto in the city of Puebla. He also wrote a comprehensive account of the movement, titled El movimiento estridentista, remarkable because it is, at the same time, a history, a defence and a literary work. His other work, Practica de educación irreligiosa, is listed in Index Librorum Prohibitorum.