Clementina Suárez
| Clementina Suárez | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
12 May 1902 Juticalpa, Honduras |
| Died |
1991 (aged 88–89) Tegucigalpa, Honduras |
| Nationality | Honduran |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Children | 2 |
Clementina Suárez (12 May 1902 – 1991) was an early Honduran writer[1] who broke social norms. She was the first woman to publish a book of poetry in Honduras and she is now regarded as its premier female poet.
Life
Suárez was born in Juticalpa in 1902[2] to Amelia Zelaya Bustillo and Luis Suarez. Suárez left her rural family home to live with a man in the capital and to become a poet. She worked as a waitress to feed herself and her two children, but she still wrote. Her first two published poems reflected her independent character. She walked the streets of the capital dressed as a bellboy to sell her work when she published six issues of a journal named Mujer (woman). In 1936–7 she was in Cuba seeing its resistance against fascism. This observation and the news of the Spanish Civil War is thought to have expanded Suárez's horizons.[2]
She founded the Gallery of Central American Art while in political exile in Mexico in the 1940s. In the 1950s she created an artist's gallery El Rancho del Artista in El Salvador which was open to the public as well as serving as a community.[1] She returned to her home country in 1958.[2]
The National Honduras University published an anthology of her poetry and the following year, 1970, she was given a national award for her work in literature.[2] Suárez mixed with the literati and she knew the Nobel Prize winners Pablo Neruda and Miguel Angel Asturias.[3] She died in Tegucigalpa in 1991.[2]
Legacy
Suárez was honoured with a Honduran stamp in 1999.[4] She has been said to be her country's premier woman poet.[5] She was also said to be the first woman in Honduras to wear shorts and lipstick; which together with appearing naked reading communist revolutionary poetry, added to her infamous reputation.[1] There is a book and a film about her life and there are said to be portraits of her by the Mexican painter Diego Rivera,[3] the Costa Rican painter Francisco Amighetti and Camilo Minero from El Salvador.[6]
Bibliography
Janet N. Gold (January 1995). Clementina Suárez: Her Life and Poetry. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-1337-4.
References
- 1 2 3 Introduction: Why Are There So Many Women Writers?, bookmaniac.org, Retrieved 26 October 2015
- 1 2 3 4 5 Janet N. Gold (30 April 2009). Culture and Customs of Honduras. ABC-CLIO. pp. 95–98. ISBN 978-0-313-34180-9.
- 1 2 Clementina Suárez: Her Life and Poetry – Book review, University Press of Florida, retrieved 26 October 2015
- ↑ Honduras stamp in 1999, StampWorld.com, Retrieved 26 October 2015
- ↑ Honduran poetry, Vianegative.us, Retrieved 26 October 2015
- ↑ Portraits of Clementina, casaclementina.com, Retrieved 26 October 2015
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