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From the Question Board Archives:

Date Answered: 10/25/1993
Question:: Could you come up with a list of native women writers (novelists) writing at the early part of this century in Mexico? Preferably titles that have been translated into English.
Answer:: Dear Questioner: Mexican women have been and continue
to be oppressed to a great degree. Frances Calderon de la Barca,
a Scottish woman married to the Spanish ambassador to Mexico who
arrived in Mexico in 1839, reported that Mexican girls were
sometimes given a miserable (at best) education, until the age of
about 10 years old, because after this age it was dangerous for
them to attend school ("these promiscuous assemblages"). The
daughters of the intelligentsia were educated just enough to make
a good confession, to embroider, and to sing a little. Mexican
women were slow to challenge the idea of the domesticated woman,
because of the danger of her decency being questioned. So there
were not a lot of women writers. But QB found the following:

Probably the best known is Frida Kahlo who was also a fine painter;
Antonieta Rivas Mercado, a poet, journalist, diarist, letter-
writer, short stories (TORN PAGES) killed herself in 1931. Elena
Garro (1920- ), playwright and novelist (RECOLLECTIONS OF THINGS TO
COME); Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974); Nellie Campobello,
ballerina and novelist (MAMA'S HANDS); Elena Poniatowska (1933-),
novelist, wrote UNTIL I SEE YOU, DEAR JESUS, but published in 1969,
a little later than you requested.

Also, Concepcion Lombardo de Miramon, the wife of a Civil War
General, wrote 2 volumes of memoirs about women's life in the mid
through latter 19th century. Poet, Dona Isabel Prieto de Landazuri
wrote plays ("Angel in the Home") and poems on motherhood. Maria
Enriqueta Camarillo was a turn of the century poet. Laura Mendez
de Cuenca (1853-1928) wrote short stories (collected in SIMPLE
PIECES) and a novel (THE STAGE). Ester Tapia was a poet. Maria
Nestora Tellez Rendon published STARROFILA in 1889. Dona Refugio
Barragan de Toscano (1846-1916) wrote LUCIERNAGAS Y LA HIJA DEL
BANDIDO. Dolores Bolio, poet, wrote 1890-1940. Enriqueta y
Ernestina Larrainza, sisters, wrote VIAGE A VARIAS PARTES DE EUROPA
as a diary, published in Mexico in 1888. Laurena Wright de
Klenhaus collaborated with Violetas del Anahuac at the turn of the
century. Signed, QB
Source(s) Used to Answer Question:: 1) TEXTURED LIVES; 2) PLOTTING WOMEN; 3)
LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS: YESTERDAY AND TODAY; 4) VOCES PARA
UN RETRATO: ENSAYOS SOBRE ALFONSO REYES; 5) LITERATURA
MEXICANA; Source Call Number(s): 1) 869.015sc14t; 3) 869.09c761; 4) 869.lr33yar; 5)
869.109L712, v.2, 1991

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