Chapter I 
A biographical resume of Ramon Diaz Sanchez 
Ramon Diaz Sanchez is a good example of a real self-taught man 
and an admirable case of literary discipline and devotion to the 
vocation of a writer. In fact, from his adolescence, he always 
cherished the secret desire of becoming a great writer and he con­
fessed this in an interview with a certain daily of the capital: 
"Recuerdo que muchas veces se me llenaba el pecho de 
precoz vanidad paseandome por la plaza de mi barrio, 
solo con mis suenos, me dirigia mentalmente a los 
demas paseantes: 'Mirenme bien: soy un escritor. 
Muchos anos han transcurrido desde entonces y aun 
siento a veces, aunque sin vanidad, la misma pueril 
emocion. Solo que ahora esta emocion desemboca 
1 
invariablemente en una pregunta: 'Lo soy?' " 
He is fundamentally a short story writer and movelist but 
he has also written numerous essays; in fact almost all the 
literary genres are evident in his work: novel, essay, biography 
2 
and short stories. Diaz Sanchez venerated all that was Venezuelan 
and a close scrutiny of his total literary work will reveal his 
genuine concern for the human and social elements in Venezuelan 
society and indeed his lived experiences in various parts of his 
native land provided him with an ample storehouse of material