María Teresa León

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In this
Spanish name, the first or paternal surname
is León and the second or maternal family name is Goyri.
María Teresa León
Born
María Teresa León Goyri

(1903-10-31)31 October 1903
Logroño, Spain
Died13 December 1988(1988-12-13) (aged 85)
Madrid, Spain
Spouses
Gonzalo de Sebastián Alfaro
​
​
(m. 1920; div. 1929)​
​
(m. 1932)​

María Teresa León Goyri (31 October 1903 – 13 December 1988) was a Spanish writer, activist and cultural ambassador. Born in

María Goyri (the wife of Ramón Menéndez Pidal). She herself was married to the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti. She contributed numerous articles to the periodical Diario de Burgos
and published the children's books Cuentos para soñar and La bella del mal amor.

Life

Daughter of Angel León Lores, a colonel in the

María Goyri, taught. She earned a BA in Philosophy
and Letters.

In 1920, when she was sixteen, she married Gonzalo de Sebastián Alfaro and had two sons, Gonzalo (b. 1921) and Enrique (b. 1925). The marriage didn't last, she lost custody of her two children and moved to her family home in

El Heraldo de Madrid.[3]

In 1933 María and Alberti founded the journal

Maxim Gorki, André Malraux and Erwin Piscator among others. Later that year she went to the United States to raise funds for the workers affected by the October 1934 Asturian miners' revolt which soon developed into an armed insurrection against the Spanish government ending in the deaths of 2,000 people including priests, miners and army personnel. This response eventually led to the coalition of different leftist factions that sparked the creation of the Popular Front.[4]

Spanish Civil War

On 18 July 1936 María and Rafael were in

José Bergamin, Luis Cernuda, Antonio Machado, Ramón J. Sender, Lorenzo Varela, María Zambrano and many non-Spanish writers such as John Dos Passos, Vicente Huidobro, André Malraux and Pablo Neruda
. The publication lasted for forty-seven issues, almost the entire period of the civil war.

She served on the Junta de Defensa y Protección del Tesoro Artístico Nacional (Board of Defense and Protection of National Artistic Patrimony) which saved the art of the

Goya come to life to defend the besieged city of Madrid. The play premiered at the Piccolo Theatre in Rome in 1973 and at the Teatro María Guerrero, Madrid in 1977.[7] She wrote "They sacrificed us. We were the Spain with torn clothes and heads held high".[8]

Exile (1939–1977)

After the

Marseilles to Buenos Aires on the SS Mendoza where they were reunited with thousands of other Spaniards who had been forced to flee their country.[9] Here she used exile to her advantage to criticize her country and avoid the Francoist censorship. In 1941 María gave birth to their daughter, the poet Aitana. During the 1940s and 1950s she gave readings of her work at benefits that aided Nazi victims or striking workers in Argentina; many of which were in organized in collaboration with soprano Isa Kremer
who sang at these benefits.

With the arrival of

Alzheimer's and could not recognize even her closest old friends. She spent her last years in a sanatorium in the mountains outside Madrid
.

She died on 13 December 1988 and is buried in the cemetery at Majadahonda just outside Madrid. On her grave are the words written by her husband: "Esta mañana, amor, tenemos veinte años" (This morning, love, we are twenty years old). María Teresa León always carried her love for Gonzalo and Enrique, her first children. In her life she suffered from the separations produced by two exiles: the first from her children, and then from her country.[10]

Writings

Collections of short stories:

  • Cuentos para soñar (Tales for Dreaming), (1928, dedicated to her eldest son, Gonzalo)
  • Le bella del mal amor (The Beauty of Bad Love), (1930)
  • Rosa-Fría, patinadora de la luna (Rosa-Fría, Moon Skater), (1934)
  • Tales from Contemporary Spain, (1935)
  • Morirás lejos (You Will Die Far Away), (1942)
  • Fábulas del tiempo amargo (Fables of Bitter Times), (1962)

Novels:

  • Contra viento y marea (Against All Odds), (1941)
  • El gran amor de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's Great Love), (1946)
  • Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, el Cid Campeador, (1954)
  • Juego limpio (Clean Game), (1954)
  • Menesteos, marinero de abril (Menesteos, Seaman of April), (1965)
  • Doña Jimena Díaz de Vivar, (1968)
  • Cervantes, El soldado que nos enseñó a hablar (Cervantes, the Soldier Who Taught Us to Speak), (1978)

Non-fiction:

  • La historia tiene la palabra (History Has the Word), (1944)
  • Sonríe China (China Smiles), (1958)
  • Memoria de la Melancolía (Memory of Melancholy), (1977) – Autobiography. Republished 2020.

Plays:

  • Huelga en el Puerto (Strike at the Harbor), (1933)
  • La liberdad en el tejado (Freedom on the Roof), (written in exile and published in 1989)

Screenplays:

  • Los ojos más bellos del mundo (The Most Beautiful Eyes in the World), (1943)
  • La dama duende (The Phantom Lady), (1945)
  • Nuestro hogar de cada día (Our Daily Home), (1958, for radio)

Awards in her name

  • Equality Prize "Teresa León Goyri – City of Logroño" – Granted on December 20, 2022 in Spain to IES Cosme García High School in the category of entities and to journalist and filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle in the category of individuals.

References

  1. ^ Calero, Rafa (11 August 2009). "Margen Izquierda: María Teresa León: Melancolía en la memoria". Margen Izquierda. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  2. ^ Ángel G. Loureiro, The Ethics of Autobiography: Replacing the Subject in Modern Spain, (2000), p.65
  3. ^ "Maria Teresa Leon - Riojanas Ilustres". Archived from the original on 30 November 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  4. ^ Tabea Alexa Linhard, Fearless Women in the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Civil War, (2005), p.205
  5. S2CID 159939003
    .
  6. ^ Rojo y Azul: La Guerra Civil Española "Rojo y Azul - la Guerra Civil Española en línea". Archived from the original on 27 November 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  7. ^ Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, (28 November 2003) "Noche de Guerra en el Museo del Prado". Archived from the original on 18 September 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
  8. ^ "No Beauty in Defeat".
  9. ^ La Nacion ADN Cultura (10 December 2010) http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1332204
  10. ^ Maureen Tobin Stanley & Gesa Zinn, Female Exiles in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Europe, (2007), p.141-153
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