Tag Archives: poniatowska

Huatulco

Writers of Literature and Social Consciousness

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By Carole Reedy

This month let’s talk about fierce Mexican women writers who scrutinize the varied plights of humankind, their words dissecting and analyzing society and human behavior. All have the ability to keenly observe, be it in a novel, short story, or essay, offering the reader fresh perspectives with which to view the world.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
A main contributor to the Spanish Golden Age of Literature (c. 1492-1659 or 1681, depending on who’s defining it), Sor Juana is today still recognized as one of the most important women writers of Spanish and Mexican literature.

Born near Mexico City as Juana de Asuaje y Ramírez de Santillana, a discrepancy exists, even today, concerning her birthdate. There is record of two baptisms, one under the name Juana in 1648 and the other in the name of Inés in 1651.

Sor Juana’s life was a constant battle to get an education not only for herself but for all women. She was active from an early age in her struggle to be educated. As a little girl she often hid in the hacienda’s chapel in order to read her grandfather’s books.

Recognized as a child prodigy, she was educated at home and could read and write in Latin by age three. She wrote her first poem at eight. Although she wanted to enter the university disguised as a male, her mother denied the request while continuing her private teaching at home.

In 1667 Sor Juana entered a nunnery and dedicated her life to writing prose and poetry about feminism, love, and religion. The convent was the only path open to her to enable “no fixed occupation, which might curtail my freedom to study.”

One of the most significant and recommended books about Sor Juana was written by Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz, entitled Sor Juana: or The Traps of Faith (1982).

Although there is much written information about Sor Juana’s struggles against church and state, as well as her censorship and rejection, the best way to understand her is through her original poetry and prose. There are translations to English for non-Spanish speakers. For a flavor of her philosophy try her famous poem “Hombres Necios” (“Foolish Men.” C. 1689).

Sor Juana died at 46 from the plague while caring for afflicted nuns in the convent.

Elena Poniatowska
Today at 91 years old, Poniatowska is still active in journalism, literature, and politics, though to a lesser degree than in the past. She was one of the founders of the prestigious newspaper La Jornada, as well as Fem, a feminist magazine. She also founded two well-known and strong Mexico City institutions – Siglo XXI, a publishing house, and the Cineteca Nacional, the national film institute.

It is impossible to list the awards Poniatowska has won worldwide or to list all the articles and books she has packed into a lifetime. I will just mention a few that have meant a lot to me in my many years of studying Spanish language and culture, as well as in simply reading for pleasure.

The first book I read cover-to-cover in Spanish was Poniatowska’s novel Leonora (2011), a novel based on the life of her good friend the eccentric surrealist artist and writer Leonora Carrington.

The book has much to offer: a glimpse into the world of surrealism through the Mexican artists and friends of Leonora, a voyage through her disturbed upper-class British childhood and adolescence, and her journey into madness. Scattered throughout are provocative tidbits of well-known personalities from her time in Europe and the US during World War II and then in Mexico, where she spent the rest of her long life.

Poniatowska’s style is straightforward, but not simple. It is a pleasure to read her and especially to learn more about the culture of her era.

Poniatowska’s best known book is La noche de Tlatelolco (Massacre in Mexico in English, 1971), which contains testimonies of the victims of the 1968 student massacre in Mexico City. During the presidency of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964-70), students demonstrated to protest their discontent with the authoritarian government. On October 2, 1968 (ten days before the Summer Olympics were to begin in Mexico City – those Olympics are famous in their own right for a Black Power protest), the military put a stop to the protests. It is estimated that 300 to 500 students who had gathered in the Plaza de Tres Culturas, the main square in the Tlatelolco neighborhood, were shot and killed by the military. Poniatowska’s interviews, charts, and slogans from the student survivors bring the events painfully alive for the reader.

Certainly Poniatowska is and has been a role model for all young women.

Cristina Rivera Garza
Cristina Rivera Garza, one of Mexico’s most prolific and popular writers, was born in 1964 on the US/Mexico border in the state of Tamaulipas. She teaches and writes in both countries and languages, currently living in San Diego and teaching history at the University of San Diego.

Her most recognized work, Nadie me verá llorar (No One Will See Me Cry, 1999) won the prestigious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize in 2001. This is the tale of the intertwined lives of Joaquín Buitrago, a morphine-addicted photographer with upper-class roots, and Matilda Burgos, a former prostitute of peasant origin who was confined to a mental hospital.

“This touching story plumbs the psychological depths of the morphine addict, vividly portrays life a century ago in Mexico, and has the added appeal of strong female characters,” says Nerissa Moran, a Spanish-language book dealer. The renowned Carlos Fuentes called the book “one of the most perturbing and beautiful novels ever written in Mexico.” Best to read it in Spanish, according to Garza’s fans.

Garza won the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize in 2009 for La muerte me da (Death Gives Me, 2007), a fragmentary and experimental novel in which the narrator discovers castrated bodies, the body and parts separated, and the text undergoes a similar fragmentation. Garza is the only author to win the Sor Juana award twice.

One of her most intriguing books is Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice (2023), a nonfiction work in which she reconstructs the circumstances leading to her younger sister’s murder in 1990. Through differing styles, she creates a book that brings back memories of this young woman who attested “I am a seeker. I want to try new things; maybe more pain and loneliness, but I think it would be worth it. I know there is more than these four walls and this sky, annoyingly blue.”

Valeria Luiselli
“Versatile” is the first word that comes to mind when Valeria Luiselli’s name comes up in conversation. She has lived in Mexico, the US, South Africa, South Korea, India, France, and Spain and has studied dance, literature, and philosophy. She has worked as a librettist for a ballet company, taught comparative literature, and has written for several art galleries.

We know her best, however, as a writer of fine literature, with immigration concerns central to both her fiction and nonfiction.

Luiselli’s book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions (2017) is ranked number 83 on The Guardian’s list of the best 100 books of the 21st century. One of my favorites, Tell Me How It Ends uses the 40 questions Luiselli, working as an interpreter, asks of undocumented Latin American children in deportation hearings. Luiselli highlights the dichotomy between immigrant dreams and the reality of American racism and fear. This short book is an emotional journey into the process, which includes Luiselli’s conversations with her own children, who ask, “Tell us how it ends, momma. What happens to the children?”

Another journey into the world of immigration is her Lost Children Archive: A Novel (2020), about a family that takes a vacation from New York to Arizona. Although the main theme is immigration and children, other family concerns pepper the journey and it is richly flavored with personal angst and perspective. The parents themselves are awaiting green cards, and the husband is obsessed with Geronimo and with bringing an understanding of the plight of the American Indian to his own children. The marriage appears to be disintegrating.

These are just a few of the legion of women who continue to spark awareness in readers through their inquisitive nature and prudent, yet daring and bold, language skills.

Huatulco

ELENA AND LEONORA:
Two Mexican Writers with European Roots

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By Carole Reedy

Both Elena Poniatowska and Leonora Carrington planted roots in Mexico in 1942, Elena as young girl of ten and Leonora as a well-traveled and rebellious woman of 25. Despite the differences in their ages, both emigrated for reasons sparked by World War II in Europe. In addition, both became Mexican citizens and, ultimately, two of the most influential, powerful, and famous women of Mexico.

Their lives
Young Elena arrived in Mexico from France with her sister and her Mexican mother, whose porfiriana family fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Elena’s father, of Polish royalty descent, remained in France to fight in the war before joining them.

Being well educated and bien educado led Elena to a career in journalism, writing, and involvement with politics. Her writing often tackles Mexico’s difficult moments in history, such as the 1968 slaughter of protesting students in Tlatelolco and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. In both cases, she interviewed extensively the people and victims who lived through these tragedies. Biographical sketches, novels, and short story collections are also found among her vast trove of publications.

Poniatowska is one of the founding writers of La Jornada (The Work Day), a major Mexico City newspaper since 1984. Despite not explicitly espousing feminist beliefs, in 1976 she co-founded Fem, the first feminist magazine in Latin America; she was a founding member of Siglo XXI, a prestigious Mexican publishing house, and Mexico’s Cineteca Nacional, the national film archive.

In contrast, Leonora Carrington’s childhood leading to her emigration to Mexico was adventurous, troublesome, and daring. Before she reached the age of 20, she had escaped her prestigious English aristocratic home and her domineering father to be with artist Max Ernst. She and Ernst lived in various parts of France in the early 1940s, but Ernst, being a Jew, was soon detained by the authorities.
Leonora left France for Spain, where she escaped from a mental hospital (an internment that had been orchestrated by her distant father) and fled to Portugal. As an exile, she eventually met and married Renato Leduc, a Mexican poet and writer. The couple, like many others wanting to escape the war, traveled to New York and then Mexico, where Leonora lived for the next 70 years, until her death at 94 in 2011.

The surrealist paintings of Leonora Carrington are found in museums and art exhibits around the world. When she moved to Mexico, knowing no one and not speaking Spanish, she was fortunate to make friends with photographer Kati Horna and painter Remedios Varo, originally from Hungary and Spain respectively. At last, with fellow women artists at her side, she was able to pursue the talent she had demonstrated since a young girl in Great Britain. She rubbed elbows with the likes of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Joan Miró, and Peggy Guggenheim.

Many people are unaware that Carrington was also an accomplished writer. Like those surreal masterpieces hanging in the world’s museums, her books take on the surreal panache of the author. Drawings, stories, and fantasies all inhabit the long-lived career and life of Leonora Carrington.

Both women led full lives, which they shared with husbands and children.

Their books
The first novel I read cover-to-cover in Spanish was Poniatowska’s Leonora, the fictionalized biography of the famous artist/writer (2011). It’s very accessible, even for those for whom Spanish is a second language, and it is of course a compelling story.

In another fictionalized biography, Tinisima (2006), she tells the story of the short (just 46 years), fascinating, and daring life of Tina Modotti, the famed photographer who kept company with the likes of Edward Weston and Diego Rivera and traveled the world studying spiritual and sexual liberation, militant communism, rigid Stalinism, workers’ revolution in Germany, and the Spanish Civil War, among other causes. A story and life, a book not to be missed.
Poniatowska’s first book, written in 1954, is a collection of short stories called Lilus Kikus. It marks the beginning of her illustrious career.

One of Poniatowska’s most-read and poignant books, La Noche de Tlatelolco: Testiomonios de historia oral (1971), was born out of the police slaughter of university students on October 2, 1968. For this book, she interviewed dozens of observers, parents, and others to give the world an accurate and objective report of the events that left Mexico and the world in shock.

If you’re curious about the details of the 1985 earthquake and its effects on the population, be sure to pick up Nada, nadie: Las voces del temblor (1988) to read first-hand accounts of the tragedy. You will understand the fear earthquakes generate here in the city, especially for those who experienced this tragic event.

Poniatowska’s writing is clear, precise, accurate, and full of poignant imagery. Read one of her books and you will be hooked!

Leonora Carrington’s books will not surprise lovers of her surrealist paintings, as they fall right in step with the style of her art. The Hearing Trumpet (1974) is her most famous work. Read and translated worldwide, it has been called a companion to the beloved Alice in Wonderland.

The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington issued in 2017 to mark the centennial of Carrington’s birth, is a compilation of her surreal short stories and is filled with magic!

Joanna Moorhead, a cousin of Carrington, recently wrote a very personal biography of the famous artist/writer: The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington (2017). Having befriended Carrington as an adult, she visited her in Mexico, coming from England several times before Leonora’s death. It’s a good read that admirers of Carrington will enjoy.

Down Below is Leonora’s personal memoir, written in 1988, of her descent into madness as a young woman. A short book, not to be missed – republished in 2017 in the Classics series of the New York Review of Books.

Both Leonora Carrington and Elena Poniatowska, each in her own way, have had a tremendous influence on the cultural and political life in Mexico. Tell your sons and daughters about them, read their books, celebrate their lives!