Juan Bosch

Born June 30, 1909, in La Vega. Dominican political and state figure; writer.

Bosch participated in the opposition movement against the Trujillo dictatorship. He was forced to emigrate in 1937. In 1939 he was one of the founders of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). He returned to the country in 1961 and was the PRD’s candidate for the presidency in 1962. Between February and September 1963 he was president of the Dominican Republic. His government carried out a number of measures infringing on the interests of US monopolies. In April 1963 the government adopted the first bourgeois-democratic constitution. Bosch’s activity evoked dissatisfaction among the imperialists of the USA and the forces of domestic reaction. He was removed as a result of a military coup (September 1963) and was in exile until 1965. In September 1965, during the upsurge of the patriotic movement in the country which took place under the banner of the restoration of the constitution of 1963, he returned to his homeland. In 1966 he was a candidate for the presidency, but under the conditions of the American occupation (from April 1965) of the Dominican Republic, he was defeated and emigrated once more. In 1970 he returned to the country.

Bosch is the author of a number of literary and journalistic works. Some have been translated into English, French, German, and Italian. His works in Russian translation are “The Rebel” and “The Holiday of Encarnación Mendoza” (Inostrannaia literatura, 1965, no. 11).