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Moritz Thomsen |
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Moritz Thomsen (1915-1991) was an American farmer, writer, and Peace Corps volunteer who worked in the small Ecuadorian town of Rio Verde. His books have been praised by writers such as Paul Theroux and Larry McMurtry.
Thomsen was born in 1915 into a wealthy American family in Seattle. Charlie, his father was President of Centinial Mills (Krustez Brand) and a multi-millionaire at the turn of the Century.[1] [2] As detailed in his memoirs, his relationship with his father was extremely strained, with Thomsen describing the man as "tyrannical."
During World War II, Thomsen served as a B-17 Flying Fortress bombardier in the Eighth Air Force. At age 44 he was working as a farmer in California when he decided to join the Peace Corps. After serving as a volunteer for four years, he remained in Ecuador. He died in 1991 of cholera.[3]
Thomsen published four books, three of them memoirs. Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle, was published in 1969 and is ranked as one of the best Peace Corps memoirs ever written.[4] The Farm on the River of Emeralds is a memoir of his years in Ecuador. My Two Wars (published posthumously) looks at both his "tempestuous" relationship with his father and his experiences as a World War II bombardier.
The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers won a 1991 Governor’s Writers Award (now the Washington State Book Awards).
A fifth Thomsen book, Bad News From the Black Coast, is still unpublished.
Thomsen's philosophy is reflected in a statement he once made: "Living Poor is like being sentenced to exist in a stormy sea in a battered canoe, requiring all your strength simply to keep afloat; there is never any question of reaching a destination. True poverty is a state of perpetual crisis, and one wave just a little bigger or coming from an unexpected direction can and usually does wreck things."[5]
