Elena Garro

Elena Garro (1916-1998) is one of the most important writers of 20^th Century Mexican and Hispanic Literature. Playwright, novelist, short-story author, journalist, screenwriter and poet. From the fifties, her work that stands out are one act plays, “Un hogar sólido” (A Solid Home) “El árbol” (The Tree), “Los perros” (The Dogs) and “La señora del balcón” (The Lady of the Balcony) (compiled in Elena Garro: Works Reunited. Theater, FCE, 2009). In them, themes of existential order, of race and of gender are addressed, renewing previously ‘costumbrista’ theater. She is considered a precursor to so-called magic realism because of her theatrical pieces, as well as for her novel, Recollections of Things to Come (Xavier Villarrutia Award, 1963). In this work, she accomplishes an acerbic analysis of the treason of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 at the same time as she presents the myths that shape up the idiosyncracy of Mexico, with a singular handling of time by juxtaposing and fusing the western cosmovision with the prehispanic. In her collection of stories, The Week of Colors, one of her most emblematic short stories, “Blame the tlaxcaltecas,” stands out. In the role of activist, she wrote countless articles and reports on the 1960’s in her struggle for democracy and social justice against the dictatorship of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This led the government to discredit and exile her (1968-1993). In her ample bibliography, We are fleeing Lola (1980), Testimonies about Mariana (1981), Reunion of Characters (1982), And Matarazo Didn’t Call… (1991), Memories of Spain 1937 (1992), Inés (1995), among others, stand out.

Biography by Patricia Rosa Lopátegui.