Pilar Barrios

Pilar Barrios (1889 – 1974) was an important poet of the black community of Uruguay and one of the founders of the Partido Autóctono Negro. She demonstrated in her poetry an understanding of the class-based racism in her society, and expressed hope that this could be overturned by the development of a racial consciousness (awareness of negritud) and renovation of education. She was optimistic in regards to this project, because she believed in the fundamental equality of people and races, as she expressed in her poems. One of her means of expression was the journal Nuestra raza, which she founded in 1917. By the publishing of Piel negra in 1947, she became one of only two black Uruguayan poets to be published in book form (the other was Virginia Brindis de Salas). As one of the most notable black intellectuals in the country, she was in contact with the larger world of black intellectual activity, corresponding with, for example, Langston Hughes.

References

Jackson, Richard. "The shared vision of Langston Hughes and black Hispanic writers" Black American Literature Forum Vol 15 No 3 pp 89–92
Roberts, Nicole. "Añoranzas negras: la poesía negra uruguaya del siglo XX" Politica y Cultura Autumn 2004 No 22 pp 183–195

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