M AKING literature in Ecuador is no bed of roses. As is the case in many Latin American countries and too often in our beloved United States, few can hope to gain a livelihood solely by writing verses or novels. One of two alternatives is usually true: (1) a writer has private sources of income, as does the well-known Ecuadoran litterateur, Benjamin Carri6n; or (2) he earns a precarious livelihood in other lines of endeavor, writing his heartfelt verses or his novels in spare moments stolen from the sterner demands of a humdrum world. Jorge Icaza, for example, one of Ecuador's best known novelists, is the proprietor of a more or less thriving bookshop. Alfredo Pareja y Diez-Canseco, whose name is known to American lovers of New-World literature in Spanish as the author of Baldomero and other fine novels, is a partner in the drug firm Pareja y Arizaga of Guayaquil. I spent a memorable evening with him last summer and we divided our time between literature and the sale of drugs in Ecuador! Humberto Salvador, another of Ecuador's good novelists, lives in extremely modest circumstances in Quito by piecing together his meagre earnings as a secondary-school teacher, tutor for foreigners learning Spanish, and occasional contributor to the local papers. Journalism is a practical refuge for many an aspiring literary man in Ecuador: Jorge Reyes, Jorge Fernandez, Luis Moscoso, and many other clever novelists, poets, and essayists manage to keep body and soul together by turning out their daily stint for Ecuador's newspapers. Consequently, if Ecuador's literary production for 1943 seems scanty, the picture of the writer wrestling with economic poverty must be held in the explanatory foreground. There are other reasons which make the publication of a book in Ecuador almost appear to be a miraculous act of God. Commercial publishing is almost unknown. An author generally pays for the publication of his books from his own pocket and distributes copies to his friends as gifts. In rare and fortunate cases he is able to persuade some public entity to sponsor the publication. The market for national literature is small or non-existent. As an Ecuadoran commentator recently said: Not long ago it was unheard of to buy a book by a national author, and times have changed very little. Native literary production is underestimated, not to say despised. Those few who buy books invariably prefer those of foreign authors.