Juan David García Bacca

Who was Juan David García Bacca?

Juan David García Bacca, was a Spanish-Venezuelan philosopher and university professor.

Garcia Bacca studied under the Claretians and became a priest in 1925. He continued his formative studies at the University of Munich, University of Zurich and the University of Paris. Yet he quit the Church during the 1930s and began to study philosophy at the University of Barcelona. In 1936 he went into exile because of his criticism of Francisco Franco, traveling first to Ecuador, where he taught at the Central University of Ecuador where he became a close friend with the writer Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco, then to México, where he taught at the UNAM and finally establishing in Venezuela in 1946 and becoming a Venezuelan citizen in 1952. He started teaching upon his arrival at the Central University of Venezuela in 1946 until his retirement in 1971. He won the National Prize for Literature in 1978 for his life's work.