Talk:Claribel Alegría
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Claribel Alegría is part of WikiProject Poetry, a WikiProject related to Poetry. |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale. |
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| Start | This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] | ||
 |
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Central America, which collaborates on articles related to Central America. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details. |
| Stub | This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale. |
| Low | This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale. |
[edit] Revert
This is the information i reverted. The information looks like copywright, not to mention the editor (User:Villatin) deleted all previous information to add it. It is not wiki-style. There are elements in which can be used in the article. LaNicoya 21:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Claribel Joy Alegrίa
Biography
The contemporary writer was born on May 12 1924 in Estelí, the second largest city of Nicaragua, to Nicaraguan father Daniel Alegrίa who was a doctor and Salvadoran mother Ana Maria Vides. One year after her birth, Alegria’s family moved to the city of Santa Ana, El Salvador after being exiled from Nicaragua during the Somoza era. At the age of 12, Claribel witnessed a massacre of campesinos (farmers) which impacted her significantly. In 1943, she moved to the United States, and attended George Washington University in Washington D.C., where she received a B.A. in Philosophy and Letters in 1948. In 1947, she married Darwin J. Flakoll, who was a journalist in Washington, D.C. and later became her translator and prime collaborator in her literary work. Together they published a novel, several books on testimonial literature, and quite a few anthologies. They had four children: Maya, Patricia, Karen and Erik. Alegrίa and Flakoll have lived in Chile, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay. After forty seven years of marriage, Claribel had to face the death of her husband. She currently resides in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.
Political Background
The Cuban revolution of 1953 set off a revolutionary fever all throughout the Central American nations. The guerrilla phenomenon was felt in Nicaragua more so for its imperialistic resentment. The Somoza Family had ruled Nicaragua since the 1930’s as an anti-communist U.S. ally. The Somozas ran the nation during the 1940’s thru the 1970’s, always supported financially and militarily by the U.S. The revolutionaries called the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Spanish: Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional also known as FSLN) took on the name Sandinista in remembrance to the nation’s greatest nationalist and anti-imperialist, Cesar Augusto Sandino. The FSLN were given by Cuba and the Soviet Union. The assassination of a publisher of a national newspaper, Joaquín Chamorro, infuriated the Nicaraguans and united them against the Somozas. The Sandinistas had the upper hand and were determined to create reforms in education and in health care. Claribel Alegrίa had a close relationship to the FSLN during the time of the revolution and in 1985 she returned to Nicaragua to assist with the nation’s reconstruction. In El Salvador similar events unfolded, but with more atrocities. The guerillas were united in 1979 creating the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Spanish: Frente Farabundo Martí Para La Liberación Nacional also known as FMLN). Farabundo Martí was a revolutionary communist during the 1930’s and the Front was guided by his Marxist ideology. The Salvadoran guerrilla was given support by Cuba, Nicaragua, and other communist nations, while the Salvadoran government was military- aided by the United States. During those years, two political forces faced off. One was the Christian Democratic Party (El Partido Democrata Cristiana) who was of central-right, Christian humanist ideology, and the other was The Nationalist Republican Alliance (Spanish: Alianza Republicana Nacionalista also known as ARENA) who were extremely conservative. The ARENA led by Roberto D’ Aubuisson was accused of being responsible for the “escuadrones de la muerte” (death squads) done by the paramilitary groups of extreme right who pursued any opposition. In 1980, the Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero, known for publicly speaking out against the government and evoking “la teologia de la liberacion” (The theology of the Liberation), was assassinated while giving mass in the cathedral of San Salvador by the anticommunist death squads. The death squads targeted priests and nuns who worked with the poor. In 1989, three American citizens were assassinated and six Jesuits priests were executed. The death of Monseñor Romero (also known as Archbishop Oscar Romero), affected Claribel enormously and inspired her writing. It forced her to put in writing her testimony of all the cruelty and injustices that were being committed in El Salvador.
Literature
When Claribel was 14, she read Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke’s which initiated her interest in poetry. At the age of seventeen, Alegrίa published her first poem which was titled, Repertorio Americano. While Claribel was studying in Loyola University in New Orleans, she met a Spanish poet and Nobel Prize winner, Juan Ramon Jiménez. Jiménez had read Alegria’s poetry and decided to become her mentor and help her with her writing. He later helped Claribel select the poems that would make up her next publication of 1948, Anillo de Silencio (Ring of Silence). Alegrίa’s literary works are surrounded around the theme of feminism and politics. In 1966 she published her first novel called Cenizas de Izalco (Ashes of Izalco). The novel portrays events that occurred in a small town in El Salvador during 1932, where it mentions the massacre of hundreds of political rebels by the Salvadoran government. In 1982, Alegrίa published her first bilingual collection of poetry, Flowers from the Volcano with the collaboration of Carolyn Forche. Forche helped Claribel write her second bilingual collection, Woman of the River. Both poetry collections dealt with the political turmoil, human repression, and Central American persecution. After the death of her husband, Claribel wrote another bilingual poetry collection, Saudade (Sorrow), which was more sensitive and tender than her previous works. The author then wrote a sequel to her previous collection and named it Soltando Amarras (Casting Off). In this collection, Alegrίa immortalizes her dead husband. In 1978, she was awarded the Casa de las Americas prize in Havana, Cuba for her literary work Sobrevivo (I Survive). Claribel Alegrίa has also won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (Premio Internacional para la Literatura). Alegrίa has published more than forty books of poetry, short novels, essays, and children’s books. She narrates and exposes the terrible truth that many Central Americans faced and continue to face. The majority of the characters in her work are based on real individuals. Her poetry is passionate and confrontational. Alegrίa makes herself the voice of all those who have been tortured, dismembered, and exiled. Alegrίa writes about historical events, culture, female abuse, love, genocide of campesinos, and corruption in regimes. She continually emphasizes her attitude towards nonviolent resistance. Claribel has received literary recognition for publicly criticizing the men in society. The writer uses the volcano as symbol of feminine consciousness. Alegria perceives women as all-pervading and fundamental in society. Her poetry is radical, painful, but at the same time hopeful.
Works
- Anillo de silencio (1948)
- Suite de amor, angustia y soledad (1950)* Vigilias (1953)
- Acuario (1955)
- Tres Cuentos (1958)
- Huesped de Mi Tiempo (1961)
- Via Unica (1965)
- Cenizas de Izalco (1966,1989)
- The Cyclone (1967)
- El Hereje (1969)
- Aprendizaje (1970)
- Sobrevivo (1978)
- La Encrucijada Salvadoreña (historical essays) (1980)
- Homenaje a El Salvador (1981)
- Suma y Sigue (anthology) (1981)
- Cien poemas (anthology) (1982)
- Flores del Volcan/Flowers from the Volcano (1982)
- Nicaragua: La Revolucion Sandinista; Una Cronica politica, 1855-1979 (1982)
- No me Agarran Viva: La Mujer salvadoreña en lucha (1983,1987)
- Para Romper el Silencio: Resistencia y lucha en las Carceles Salvadoreñas (1984)
- Viva Sandino, Vanguardia (1985)
- On the Front Line: Guerrilla Poems of El Salvador (1988)
- Mujer del Rio/Woman of the River (1989)
- El Niño Que Buscaba A Ayer (1997)
- Saudade (1999)
- Soltando Amarras (2003)
Bibliography
- Born In Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America / Chasteen, John., 2001
- Latinoamérica: Presente y Pasado/ Fox, Arturo A., 2003
- Voces femeninas de Hispanoamérica:Antologίa/ Gutiérrez, Gloria Bautista., 1996
- Claribel Alegría/Salgado, Maria A., 2003.
External Links
Premio Internacional
- [<http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2005/10/28/nacionales/4432 >]
- [<http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2006/11/26/cultural/34848>]
Villatin 20:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Big Edit
About this edit: it was unsourced and seemed copy righted. I dont want to risk it, so I removed it. Brusegadi 13:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
