Corazón de Chiapas

Touring Guide of State of Chiapas-México

Biography

Rosario Castellanos was born in Mexico City on 25 May 1925, but spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Chiapas, particularly in Comitan de Dominguez, south side of Mexico, a place that strongly influenced the atmosphere and style their works.

Daughter of a prominent family of landowners, was soon aware of the injustices that impeded the progress of the Indians: a compression which, together with his introverted and intellectual ambitions "unbecoming" of a woman, always kept him from feeling integrated into the cacique society..

He studied Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), where he associated with Ernesto Cardenal, Dolores Castro, Jaime Sabines and Augusto Monterroso. He also studied at the University of Madrid with a grant from the Institute of Hispanic Culture. He taught at several Mexican universities and the University of Wisconsin, Colorado State University and the University of Indiana. He wrote for years in the newspaper Excelsior, was sponsoring the Chiapaneco Institute of Culture and the National Indigenous Institute and secretary of the PEN Club. In 1954 he was granted a scholarship by the Rockefeller Foundation in the Mexican Center of Writers.

He spent a very extensive part of his work and his energy to defending the rights of women, work for which he is remembered as a symbol of Latin American feminism.

In 1958 he was awarded the Balun Canan Chiapas and three years later the City Award by Xavier Villaurrutia real. He later received other awards including the Award include Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1962), Premio Carlos Trouyet Lyrics (1967) and Elias Sourasky Prize Lyrics (1972).

As a cultural promoter worked at the Institute of Science and Arts of Tuxtla Gutierrez and directed the Guignol Theater of the Tzeltal-Tzotzil Coordinating Center sponsored by the National Indigenous Institute. At the National Autonomous University of Mexico worked as Director General of Information and Media (1960-1966) and taught at the Faculty of Arts.

His last years were devoted to foreign service. He was appointed Ambassador of Mexico to Israel in 1971, serving as professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in addition to his work as an ambassador.

On a personal level, however, his life was marked by a disastrous marriage and continuing depression.

He died in Tel Aviv on 7 August 1974, following a shock caused by a lamp when he went to answer the phone after leaving a bath, his remains were moved to the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons on 9 August 1974.

His Works:

His works deal with political issues, and he conceived the world as "site of struggle in which one is committed," as expressed in his poetry collection "Livida Luz".

"Balun Canan", "Ciudad Real" and "Oficio de Tinieblas" form the trilogy's most important indigenous Mexican narrative of this century.

He regarded poetry as "an attempt to get to the root of things" through metaphor. Each topic I was linked with the everyday and the interest in the role of women in society and by its criticism of sexist approach, exemplified by his story cooking lesson cooking, shut up and obey her husband. His play The Eternal Feminine (1975), feminist in nature.

His own feelings are reflected in his writings: First revelation in the story describes his experience as a child discriminated against his brother, the prose poem Lament from Dido is inspired by the indifference of his love of many years, Ricardo Guerra, the novel Rite initiation autobiographical connotations also focuses on the conflicts of a woman studied to escape the conservative prejudices of the province and professional face competition in the city and was only published posthumously..