Gallegos Freire Rómulo

Gallegos Freire, Rómulo (1884-1969), Venezuelan novelist and statesman, born in Caracas. He was a teacher from 1912 until 1930, and during this period he published several novels dealing with Venezuelan life. Gallegos’s best-known work, Doña Bárbara (1929; trans. 1931), depicts the unsuccessful struggle against the forces of tyranny in Venezuela. Because the novel was deemed critical of the dictator Juan Vincente Gómez, Gallegos exiled himself in 1931. Upon his return to Venezuela he was appointed minister of education, but his efforts at school reform failed, and he was forced to resign. In 1945 he participated in the military coup that brought Rómulo Betancourt to power as provisional president. Gallegos was himself elected president, but served only three months in 1948 before he was forced into exile following a military coup. He returned to Venezuela in 1958.