Jorge Ibargüengoitia Antillón (January 22, 1928 – November 27, 1983) was a Mexican novelist and playwright who achieved great popular and critical success with his satires, three of which have appeared in English: The Dead Girls, Two Crimes, and The Lightning of August. His plays include Susana y los Jóvenes and Ante varias esfinges, both dating from the 1950s. His work also includes short stories and chronicles and is currently considered one of the most influential writers in Latin American literature Ibargüengoitia was born in Guanajuato, Mexico. In 1955, he received a Rockefeller grant to study in New York City; five years later he received the Mexico City literary award. He died in Avianca Flight 011, which crashed on November 27, 1983, while it attempted to land in Madrid, Spain. Biography Jorge Ibargüengoitia was born in 1928 in the city of Guanajuato. His father, Alejandro Ibargüengoitia Cumming, died when he was eight months old. His mother, María de la Luz Antillón, moved with Jorge to Mexico City to be close to her family after losing her husband, so Ibargüengoitia was brought up by his mother and by other women of her family. During his early education, he studied in schools that belonged to the Marist Brothers and was a boy scout. In 1947 he attended the Jamboree (the annual reunion of the Scouts), in which he travelled through France, Italy, Switzerland and England for three months. The painter Manuel Felguérez, a friend who went to the same trip, told years later that both had considered the trip an amazing experience and had decided that they should do something with their lives that allowed them to continue travelling. Due to family pressure, Ibargüengoitia started studying engineering at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) in 1945, although he dropped out in 1949 before finishing his studies. He wrote: "I grew up surrounded by women who adored me. They wanted me to be an engineer: they had had money, but had lost it and hoped I would make up for it [...] When I had two years left to finish the engineering degree, I decided to drop out to focus on writing. The women of the house spent 15 years bemoaning that decision [...] Later on they got used to it". After dropping out, he moved back to the state of Guanajuato, where his family still had lands. During that time, Ibargüengoitia met