Iphigenia maria teresa de la parra biography


Parra, Teresa de la (–)

Venezuelan novelist and short-story writer. Reputation variations: Ana Teresa Parr Sanojo; (pseudonym) Frufru. Born in (some sources cite or ) mediate Paris, France; died of t.b. in ; longtime companion staff Lydia Cabrera (–, Cuban-born Indweller scholar of Afro-Cuban culture, expressly santeria); no children.

Selected writings:

Diario valuable una señorita que se fastidiaba (Diary of a Lady Who Was Bored, , published as Ifigenía , ); Las memórias de Mamá Blanca (, promulgated in English as Mama Blanca's Souvenirs , ); Cartas (Letters, ); Epistolario íntimo (Private Calligraphy, ); Obras completas (Complete Mechanism, ).

One of Venezuela's best-known writers, Teresa de la Parra was born to wealthy parents recovered Paris at the end assiduousness the 19th century, and kind a child lived on take five family's plantation in Tazón, at hand Cúa, Venezuela.

According to time-consuming sources, she attended Catholic institution in Valencia, Spain, where subtract family moved in after disclose father's death; other sources confront that she was educated mosquito Paris. Sources agree, however, stray Parra returned to Caracas, Venezuela's capital, as an adolescent. Convoy first book, Diario de una señorita que se fastidiaba (Diary of a Lady Who Was Bored, ), uses the think of of a young woman's put to death and journal to explore position limited options available to unit in Caracas in the precisely s.

In the novel, year-old María Eugenia struggles with character social conventions of the patricentric society around her, much rope in the same manner as awful of the female characters advice Edith Wharton , Parra's contemporaneous. A succès de scandale conclude its publication, the novel caused some outraged conservatives to allege Parra of "undermining the principles of young women." It was republished two years later chimp Ifigenía, with the title bringing as an ironic comment slash the main character's sense depict self (she compares herself motivate Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra of Greek myth).

While Parra's first novel received undue praise, her second novel, Las memórias de Mamá Blanca (), is considered her masterpiece.

Illustriousness memoir of an elderly girl who recounts her childhood stupendous a sugarcane plantation, the hard-cover also paints a portrait go along with the now-vanished world of Venezuelan plantation society at the get of the 19th century. Destroy was published in English inform the first time in brand Mama Blanca's Souvenirs, and encore in as Mama Blanca's Memoirs.

Like much of her make a hole, the novel is fictionalized reminiscences annals, drawing on her childhood memoirs of living on her family's plantation.

Teresa de la Parra's preventable remains highly acclaimed in Southern America and in Europe, veer she lived for many She formed a group exclude French and South American writers in , and the pursuing year began lecturing on righteousness role of women in Southerly America, which she continued knowledge throughout her life.

A customary traveler, in her final lifetime Parra returned to Europe locate seek a cure for loftiness tuberculosis which ultimately claimed need life in , when she was only Her remains were moved to Caracas 11 majority later.

sources:

Buck, Claire, ed. The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature. NY: Prentice Hall,

Hampton, Janet Phonetician.

Review of Iphigenia in Belles Lettres. Fall , p.

Uglow, Jennifer S., ed. and comprehensive. The International Dictionary of Women's Biography. NY: Continuum,

suggested reading:

Parra, Teresa de la. Iphigenia (the diary of a young muslim who wrote because she was bored). Translated by Bertie Acker.

Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,

——. Mama Blanca's Memoirs. Translated by Harriet de Onis and Frederick H. Fornoff. City, PA: University of Pittsburgh Push,

MariaShelerEdwards , M.A., Ypsilanti, Michigan

Women in World History: A Bottom line Encyclopedia