Blanca Varela

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Blanca Leonor Varela Gonzáles (10 August 1926 Lima, Peru) is considered one of the most important poets of Latin American literature.

[edit] Biography

Her mother was a composer who authored many famous creole waltzes. She studied at the National University of San Marcos where she met other future writers such as Sebastián Salazar Bondy, Javier Sologuren, Jorge Eduardo Eielson, and her future husband, the sculptor Fernando de Szyszlo with whom she has two children. In 1949 they travelled to Paris where she met Octavio Paz, a key figure in her life, who introduced her to the artists and intellectuals there, such as André Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Henri Michaux, Alberto Giacometti or Fernand Léger, among others; and also other Latin American authors who lived in France at that time, for example Carlos Martínez Rivas. Paz persuaded her to publisher her poetry, and in the preface to the first edition of her debut book Ese puerto existe (1959) he wrote: "At that time we all used to sing. And among those songs you could hear a lonesome song of one Peruvian girl: Blanca Varela. The most secret, timid and natural of them all." ^[1] Later Varela lived in Firenze and Washington. In 1962 she returned to Lima and since then travels mainly to USA, Spain and France.

She received Medalla de Honor from the National Institute of Peruvian culture, Premio Octavio Paz de Poesía y Ensayo (Octavio Paz Prize for poetry and essays), Premio Internacional de Poesía Ciudad de Granada Federico García Lorca (International Prize of Lorca´s city Granada, 2006; as the first woman ever), and Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana (Queen Sophia's Prize for Iberoamerican Poetry, 2007).

[edit] Poetry

Her poems are surrealist in the way that they try to express the world in an innocent way from the inner space's point of view, yet they cannot prevent cruelty from coming into them from the outside world. This attempt to find perfection with every new poem has, according to Mario Vargas Llosa who used Varela's poem Ternera acosada por tábanos (Calf tortured by horse-flies) ^[2] as a notable example of her philosophy, "the quality of heroes from ancient myths who die, but fight to the very last moment anyway."

Her books were translated into English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Czech.

Collections of poetry

• Ese puerto existe (That port exists), 1959
• Luz de día (Daylight), 1963
• Valses y otras falsas confesiones (Waltzes and other false confessions), 1971
• Ejercicios materiales (Material exercises), 1978 - 1993
• Canto Villano (Song of dirtiness), 1978
• El libro de barro (Book of clay), 1993 - 1994
• Concierto animal (Animals´ concert), 1999
• El falso teclado (Fake keyboard), 2001

[edit] References and external links

• Info, photo and poetry in English
• Info and poetry, in Spanish
• 10. 5. 2007, Lorca´s Granada Prize, with a photo