Alejandra Pizarnik

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Alejandra Pizarnik
Photograph of Pizarnik by Sara Facio
Photograph of Pizarnik by Sara Facio
BornFlora Alejandra Pizarnik
(1936-04-29)29 April 1936
Avellaneda, Argentina
Died25 September 1972(1972-09-25) (aged 36)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Resting placeLa Tablada Israelite Cemetery
OccupationPoet

'Flora' Alejandra Pizarnik (29 April 1936 – 25 September 1972) was an

Argentine poet. Her idiosyncratic and thematically introspective poetry has been considered "one of the most unusual bodies of work in Latin American literature",[1] and has been recognized and celebrated for its fixation on "the limitation of language, silence, the body, night, the nature of intimacy, madness, [and] death".[1]

Pizarnik studied philosophy at the

Fulbright Fellowship
.

On September 25, 1972, she died by suicide after ingesting an overdose of secobarbital.[2] Her work has influenced generations of authors in Latin America.

Biography

Early life

Flora Alejandra Pizarnik was born on April 29, 1936, in

stutter. She adopted the name Alejandra as a teenager.[6] As an adult, she had a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia.[7]

Career

A year after entering the School of philosophy and letters at the

Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pizarnik published her first book of poetry, La tierra más ajena (1955).[8] She took courses in literature, journalism, and philosophy at the university of Buenos Aires School of Philosophy and Letters, but dropped out in order to pursue painting with Juan Batlle Planas.[9] Pizarnik followed her debut work with two more volumes of poems, La última inocencia (1956) and Las aventuras perdidas (1958). She was an avid reader of fiction and poetry. Beginning with novels, she delved into more literature with similar topics to learn from different points of view. This sparked an early interest in literature and also for the unconscious, which in turn gave rise to her interest in psychoanalysis. Pizarnik’s involvement in Surrealist methods of expression was represented by her automatic writing techniques.[6]

Her lyricism was influenced by Antonio Porchia, French symbolists—especially Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé—, the spirit of romanticism and by the surrealists. She wrote prose poems, in the spirit of Octavio Paz, but from a woman's perspective on issues ranging from loneliness, childhood, and death.[10] Pizarnik was bisexual/lesbian but in much of her work references to relationships with women were self-censored due to the oppressive nature of the Argentine dictatorship she lived under.[11]

Between 1960 and 1964 Pizarnik lived in Paris, where she worked for the magazine

Fulbright Scholarship.[9]

Death

Pizarnik died by suicide on September 25, 1972, by overdosing on secobarbital,[14] at the age of 36,[3] on the same weekend she left the hospital where she was institutionalized[when?].[15] She is buried at the Cementerio Israelita in La Tablada, Buenos Aires Province.

Books

Library resources about
Alejandra Pizarnik
By Alejandra Pizarnik

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Ferrari, Patricio (25 July 2018). "Where the Voice of Alejandra Pizarnik Was Queen". The Paris Review. Archived from the original on 2 June 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  2. ^ Centenera, Mar (26 September 2022). "Alejandra Pizarnik: 'I write against fear'". El País English. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  3. ^
    Centro Virtual Cervantes (in Spanish). Archived
    from the original on 12 December 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  4. ^ Rojas, Tina Suárez (1997). "Alejandra Pizarnik: ¿La escritura o la vida?" [Alejandra Pizarnik: Writing or life?]. Mozaika (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 4 December 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  5. Centro Virtual Cervantes (in Spanish). Archived
    from the original on 21 July 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  6. ^
    ISSN 2165-4026. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 23 April 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  7. JSTOR 475135
    .
  8. ^ Enriquez, Mariana (28 September 2012). "La poeta sangrienta" [The bloody poet]. Página/12 (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 24 October 2022. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-0-937406-36-6. Archived from the original
    on 16 May 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
  10. ^ Giannini Rita, Natalia (1998). Pro(bl)em: The paradox of genre in the literary renovation of the Spanish American poema en prosa (on prose poems of Alejandra Pizarnik and Giannina Braschi). Florida State University Dissertation Archives.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^ Mackintosh, Fiona J. "Self-Censorship and New Voices in Pizarnik's Unpublished Manuscripts" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  12. ISBN 1877727385.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  13. ^ "Alejandra Pizarnik". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 6 February 2011. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2011.
  14. ^ Bowen, Kate (17 May 2012). "Alejandra Pizarnik the Darkest Legacy Left". The Argentina Independent. Archived from the original on 11 January 2015. Retrieved 1 November 2012.
  15. ISBN 978-0-937406-36-6
    .

Further reading

External links

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