14TH JUNE AT 7.00 PM "TRANSLATING AS ART AND SCIENCE, A TRIBUTE TO THE PHILOLOGIST DAVID JUAN FERRIZ OLIVARES" AT BOYD COMMUNITY HUB, SOUTHBANK

David Juan Ferriz Olivares was born 12nd June 1921 in the Japanese Mexican Delegation in Kobe, in Honshu Island (which means “Master of the Book”). His parents were Mexican diplomats, David Sabás Ferriz Reyero was a University Professor of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and he was a linguist, his mother was Mrs Dolores Olivares Cuevas de Ferriz. Since his birth he reflects the multidimensional quality of his being who spreaded to the world from South America, where he lived the major part of his life and the more culminating. He defined his nationality in the following way: “I’m a South American, of Mexican origin, born in Japan”. Great figure of the Universal Thought, person of extraordinary culture and deep historical vision, in his 71 years of life he realized a titanic mission for the centuries, overcoming obstacles peculiar of the beginning of a new age.

Later on he arrived in Mexico and he started a precocious contact with literature and philosophy which marked forever his apostolate of thought, his musical creativity and his potenciality for scientific research. In the mornings he attended the primary school and in the afternoons his father started to take him to his University lectures, he presented him to philosophers such as Antonio Caso, José Vasconcelos, writers such as Erasmo Castellanos Quinto and Alfonso Reyes, whose lectures his father took him as listener.

He studied Philosophy and Economy and obtained a degree in Philosophy and Languages, with deep knowledge in Epistemology, Linguistics and Philology, furthermore he was interested in applied sciences in the unlimited sense of knowledge, thanks to his universal spirit. He took part in the Salòn de Cabildos of the National Palace, as member of the Free Platform of Dibate of Mexico, composed by orators as writers, history and linguistics experts, beginning in this way another of his dimensions in which he gave more than 7000 conferences and courses during his lifetime.