Otto Rene Castillo was born in Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1936. He was a student organizer from 1954, and was exiled for the first time at the age of seventeen. During the next ten years he was imprisoned and tortured several times but managed to study both at the University of Guatemala and the University of Leipzig.
In 1955 he shared the Premio Centroamericana de Poesia with Roque Dalton, the well-known poet from El Salvador. The following year, 1956, he won the "Autonomia" poetry prize in Guatemala City, and in 1957 he was awarded one of the poetry prizes at the World Youth Festival.
Castillo returned to Guatemala from exile in 1964 and continued his activities as a student organizer. He founded the "Teatro Experimental de la Municipalidad," an experimental revolutionary theater group which had its roots in the theory and practice of Brecht. In 1965 he was again sent into exile,a and near the end of 1966 he returned to Guatemala for the last time and joined the F.A.R. (Armed Revolutionary Front).
In March 1967, Otto Rene Castillo and his guerrilla group were ambushed and captured. He and a girl comrade, Nora Paiz, were put to death on 19 March 1967.
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