Rosario Castellanos
Encyclopedia
Rosario Castellanos was a Mexican
poet and author. Along with the other members of the Generation of 1950 (the poets who wrote following the Second World War, influenced by Cesar Vallejo
and others), she was one of Mexico's most important literary voices in the last century. Throughout her life, she wrote eloquently about issues of cultural and gender oppression, and her work has influenced feminist
theory and cultural studies
. Though she died young, she opened the door of Mexican literature to women, and left a legacy that still resonates today.
, she was raised in Comitán
near her family's ranch in the southern state of Chiapas
. She was an introverted young girl, who took notice of the plight of the indigenous Maya
who worked for her family. According to her own account, she felt estranged from her family after a soothsayer
predicted that one of her mother's two children would die shortly, and her mother screamed out, "Not the boy!"
The family's fortunes changed suddenly when President
Lázaro Cárdenas enacted a land reform
and peasant emancipation policy that stripped the family of much of its land holdings. At fifteen, Castellanos and her parents moved to Mexico City
. One year later, her parents were dead and she was left to fend for herself.
Although she remained introverted, she joined a group of Mexican and Central America
n intellectuals, read extensively, and began to write. She studied philosophy
and literature
at UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico
), where she would later teach, and joined the National Indigenous Institute, writing scripts for puppet
shows that were staged in impoverished regions to promote literacy
. Ironically, the Institute had been founded by President Cárdenas, who had taken away her family's land. She also wrote a weekly column for the newspaper Excélsior
.
In addition to her literary work, Castellanos held several government posts. In recognition for her contribution to Mexican literature, Castellanos was appointed ambassador to Israel
in 1971.
On 7 August 1974 Castellanos died in Tel Aviv
from an unfortunate electrical accident. Some have speculated that the accident was in fact suicide. Mexican writer Martha Cerda, for example, wrote to journalist Lucina Kathmann, "I believe she committed suicide, though she already felt she was dead for some time.". There is no evidence to support such a claim, however.
– of mestizo, not indigenous descent – Castellanos shows considerable concern and understanding for the plight of indigenous peoples. "Cartas a Ricardo," a collection of her letters to her husband Ricardo Guerra was published after her death as was her third novel,"Rito de iniciacion." Rosario Castellanos said of the collection of her letters in "Cartas a Ricardo"that she considered them to be her autobiography. "Rito de iniciacion" is about a young woman who comes to Mexico City and discovers her vocation of a writer.
Links:
Rosario Castellanos reading some of her poetry.
Rosario Castellanos at www.palabravirtual.com
Musical versions of Rosario Castellanos' poetry.
http://www.alisaamor.com/alisaamor4/Rosario.html
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
poet and author. Along with the other members of the Generation of 1950 (the poets who wrote following the Second World War, influenced by Cesar Vallejo
César Vallejo
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was a Peruvian poet. Although he published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language. Thomas Merton called him "the greatest universal poet since Dante"...
and others), she was one of Mexico's most important literary voices in the last century. Throughout her life, she wrote eloquently about issues of cultural and gender oppression, and her work has influenced feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
theory and cultural studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
. Though she died young, she opened the door of Mexican literature to women, and left a legacy that still resonates today.
Life
Born in Mexico CityMexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, she was raised in Comitán
Comitán
Comitán is the fourth-largest city in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It is the seat of government of the municipality of the same name....
near her family's ranch in the southern state of Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
. She was an introverted young girl, who took notice of the plight of the indigenous Maya
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
who worked for her family. According to her own account, she felt estranged from her family after a soothsayer
Fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...
predicted that one of her mother's two children would die shortly, and her mother screamed out, "Not the boy!"
The family's fortunes changed suddenly when President
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
Lázaro Cárdenas enacted a land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
and peasant emancipation policy that stripped the family of much of its land holdings. At fifteen, Castellanos and her parents moved to Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. One year later, her parents were dead and she was left to fend for herself.
Although she remained introverted, she joined a group of Mexican and Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
n intellectuals, read extensively, and began to write. She studied philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
at UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...
), where she would later teach, and joined the National Indigenous Institute, writing scripts for puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
shows that were staged in impoverished regions to promote literacy
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
. Ironically, the Institute had been founded by President Cárdenas, who had taken away her family's land. She also wrote a weekly column for the newspaper Excélsior
Excélsior
Excélsior is a daily newspaper, founded by Rafael Alducin and published in Mexico City since 1917.During the 1950s and 1960s, the newspaper's editorial stance was of a relatively liberal bent, under the editorship of Julio Scherer...
.
In addition to her literary work, Castellanos held several government posts. In recognition for her contribution to Mexican literature, Castellanos was appointed ambassador to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1971.
On 7 August 1974 Castellanos died in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
from an unfortunate electrical accident. Some have speculated that the accident was in fact suicide. Mexican writer Martha Cerda, for example, wrote to journalist Lucina Kathmann, "I believe she committed suicide, though she already felt she was dead for some time.". There is no evidence to support such a claim, however.
Work
Throughout her career, Castellanos wrote poetry, essays, one major play, and three novels: the semi-autobiographical Balún Canán and Oficio de tinieblas (translated into English as The Book of Lamentations) depicting a Tzotzil indigenous uprising in Chiapas based on one that had occurred in the 19th century. Despite being a ladinoLadino people
Ladino is a Spanish term used to describe various socio-ethnic categories in Latin America, principally in Central America.The term Ladino is derived from "latino" and usually refers to the mestizo or hispanicized population...
– of mestizo, not indigenous descent – Castellanos shows considerable concern and understanding for the plight of indigenous peoples. "Cartas a Ricardo," a collection of her letters to her husband Ricardo Guerra was published after her death as was her third novel,"Rito de iniciacion." Rosario Castellanos said of the collection of her letters in "Cartas a Ricardo"that she considered them to be her autobiography. "Rito de iniciacion" is about a young woman who comes to Mexico City and discovers her vocation of a writer.
Selected bibliography
- Balún-Canán (1957)
- Poemas (1953–1955) (1957)
- Ciudad Real: Cuentos (1960)
- Oficio de tinieblas (1962)
- Album de familia (1971)
- Poesía no eres tú; Obra poética: 1948-1971 (1972)
- Mujer que sabe latín . . . (1973)
- El eterno femenino: Farsa (1973)
- Bella dama sin piedad y otros poemas
- Los convidados de agosto
- Declaración de fe
- La muerte del tigre
- Cartas a Ricardo (1994)
- Rito de iniciación (1996)
English translations
- The Nine Guardians: a Novel (1992), trans. Irene Nicholson
- The Book of Lamentations (1996), trans. Esther Allen
Additional reading
- Ahern, Maureen."Rosario Castellanos". Latin American Writers. 3 vols. Ed. Solé/Abreu. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989: III: 1295-1302.
- ___. "Rosario Castellanos". Spanish American Woman Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book. Ed. Diane E. Marting. Westport/London: Greenwood Press, 1990: 140-155.
- Anderson, Helene M. "Rosario Castellanos and the Structures of Power". Contemporary Women Authors of Latin America. Ed. Doris Meyer & Margarite Fernández Olmos. NY: Brooklyn College Humanities Institute Series, Brooklyn College, 1983: 22-31.
- Bellm, Dan. "A Woman Who Knew Latin." The Nation. (26 June 1989): 891-893.
- Brushwood, John S. The Spanish American Novel: A Twentieth Century Survey. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1975., pp. 237–238.
- Castillo, Debra A. Talking Back: Toward a Latin American Feminist Literary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
- Juarez Torres, Francisco. La poesia indigenista en cuatro poetas latinoamericanos: Manuel Gonzalez Prada, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda y Rosario Castellanos. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1990.
- Kintz, Linda. Title: The Subject's Tragedy: Political Poetics, Feminist Theory, and Drama. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1992.
- Laín Corona, Guillermo. "Infancia y opresión en Balún Canán, de Rosario Castellanos. La niña como eje témtico y esructural de la novela". Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 88.7 (2011): 777-794.
- Medeiros-Lichem, María Teresa. "Rosario Castellanos: The Inclusion of Plural Languages and the Problematic of Class and Race in Texts Written by Women". In Reading the Femine Voice in Latin American Women's Fiction: From Teresa de la Parra to Elena Poniatowska and Luisa Valenzuela. New York/Bern: Peter Lang, 2002: 84-99.
- Melendez, Priscilla. "Genealogia y escritura en Balun-Canan de Rosario Castellanos" MLN 113.2 (March 1998) (Hispanic Issue): 339-363.
- Meyer, Doris. Reinterpreting the Spanish American Essay: Women Writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Austin : University of Texas Press, 1995.
- Schaefer, Claudia. Textured Lives: Women, Art, and Representation in Modern Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992.
- Schwartz, Kessel. A New History of Spanish American Fiction. Vol. 2. Coralal Gables: University of Florida Press, 1971: 299-301.
- Turner, Harriet S. "Moving Selves: The Alchemy of Esmero (Gabriela Mistral, Gloria Riestra, Rosario Castellanos, and Gloria Fuertes)". In the Feminine Mode: Essays on Hispanic Women Writers. Eds, Noël Valis and Carol Maier. Lewisburg: Bucknell University press, 1990: 227-245.
- Ward, Thomas. La resistencia cultural: la nación en el ensayo de las Américas. Lima: Universidad Ricardo Palma, 2004: 269-275.
Links:
Rosario Castellanos reading some of her poetry.
Rosario Castellanos at www.palabravirtual.com
Musical versions of Rosario Castellanos' poetry.
http://www.alisaamor.com/alisaamor4/Rosario.html