Gonzalo Arango - Abandonment of Nadaism

Abandonment of Nadaism

As a surprise for his followers, Gonzalo Arango abandoned Nadaísmo in 1970, an event that was considered by the Nadaists as treason to its original principles. Already in 1968 he wrote an article of admiration for president Carlos Lleras Restrepo that caused the disapproval of the Nadaists. It was the beginning of the separation of the founder and his foundation until the day of his death.

The man who wrote manifestos against Catholic writers, began a new time of profound spirituality and the writing of love poems for his lover, the British Angela Mary Hickie:

For Angelita, Nadaísmo died in the 1970s buried by its own father. For this reason she remembers that in "Correspondencia violada" Arango goes against his own disciples and said that "they are digging out their old literary corpses to live from them in an advertising sense, disguising their past of soulless modernity, plastic philosophical eggs. What a lack of faith in life to still believe in Nadaism as the salvation...! What is important is what we are and not what we were,"

However, for Colombian writers of Nadaism like Jotamario Arbeláez and Eduardo Escobar, the movement is still alive in dissenter youngsters:

"You shouldn't get into an argument with Yoko Ono or Maria Kodama, on the risk of legitimizing them - said Arbeláez -. If we Nadaists were to devote ourselves to answer to Angelita, that would mean the real sign of our decadency as extremists, after 50 years of keeping alive the most negative and virulent movement of the history in literature."

Gonzalo Arango was also a journalist and he participated in different newspapers and magazines both in his country like Nueva Prensa, Cromos Magazine, and outside, as Corno Emplumado (Mexico) and Zona Franca (Venezuela). He published also his Nadaism Magazine.

"The Prophet," as he liked to call himself and was so called by his followers, ended his life in a tragic accident on the road Bogotá - Tunja on September 27, 1976.