Adela Zamudio

Adela Zamudio Rivero (Cochabamba, October 11, 1854 - ibidem, June 2, 1928) was a writer, a pioneer of feminism in Bolivia, who cultivated both poetry as narrative.

Biography

Adela Zamudio was born on October 11, 1854 in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. She was the daughter of Adolfo Zamudio and Modesta Rivero; she lived with her brothers Mauro, Arturo and Amadís. She studied at the Catholic school of San Alberto in her hometown, but she only attended the third year of primary school, since at that time it was the highest education offered to women during the government of President Mariano Melgarejo. However, despite all the difficulties that existed for women during her adolescence, she continued to educate herself through reading.

In the late 19th century, after the Liberal Party took over, she began working as a teacher at the same school where she had been educated. Later, she was director of the Escuela Fiscal de Señoritas (1905).

He wrote articles for El Heraldo of Cochabamba in which he developed progressive ideas —thus, he advocated the suppression of religious education—, and in his work he protested against the discrimination suffered by the women. An example of her poem Born a man :

A superior woman

In elections you don't vote,

And vote the worst pill;

(Let me be amazed)

With only knowing how to sign

You can vote an idiot,

Because he's a man.

Other of his well-known poems are La ciega and When you are with a woman, which served as inspiration for the women who were able to defy the rules of their time. Here are some fragments of his poetry.

The Blind Woman

Ow! Don't gimas, ma'am.

by a well-known

and while the world cries

seek in your dreaming soul

What your eyes don't see.

When you're with a woman

When you're with a woman.

Make love to him, don't just have sex.

Tell her you love her, you're crazy about her.

Not just kiss her and get in full.

Kiss your whole body,

Walking through their corners.

Recognize with your lips what clothing

Don't let him see.

Due to the conservative thought that prevailed in important sectors of the Bolivian population, the meaning of these verses was not understood —or they pretended not to understand them—, and they were attributed to some love disappointment. What was certain is that his life had become a long and painful bachelorhood, a situation that reflects the pseudonym he used: Soledad . Despite the difficulties to speak, "in a narrow environment, riddled with devouts and social prejudices", of civil marriage, of a profession for the home birth attendant, of reforms and women's liberation, Adela Zamudio "challenged this society that did not understand her revolutionary ideas in favor of her sex".

Adela Zamudio at the beginning of the 20th century in the year 1900 (at age 46).

In 1901 he founded a painting academy in Cochabamba and, in 1916, the Liceo de Señoritas, which bears his name.

He cultivated neo-romantic poetry —he began to publish his verses in 1877 under the pseudonym Soledad, in the aforementioned El Heraldo— and prose. He wrote an epistolary novel —Intimates, "about the corrupt clergy and the surrounding hypocrisy" — and short stories (The Flood, Night party , Yesterday's meeting , The veil of the Purisima , The diamond , etc.).

Lydia Parada de Brown considers that "this Bolivian writer has been one of the greatest in America, but unfortunately she has not reached the fame of Gabriela Mistral, nor Juana de Ibarbourou".

On May 28, 1926, President Hernando Siles Reyes crowned Adela Zamudio in Cochabamba, recognizing her as the highest exponent of culture in Bolivia. The rector of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Félix del Granado stated on that occasion:

People, honor and love the poet; love him because with his hands torn, wounds by the thorns of the way, gathers the golden spike and loves the bread; for, with his bleeding feet, he descends to the deep cisterns after the water with which the amphora shudders; love him because he so quenches your hunger for beauty and soothes your thirst for ideal.

In a letter to Franz Tamayo, Adela Zamudio summarizes her life in this way and explains a little about her ancestry to her friend.

I was born in Cochabamba, I think 54 or 55. I don't have my old faith. I have passed my youth to the head of a sick mother and my age matures like my old age, struggling hard for life. My mother, Mrs. Modesta Ribero of Zamudio, was a peacekeeper. Portuguese granddaughter by paternal and French line by motherline. My father, Adolfo Zamudio, was born in Lima, an Ecuadorian mother and an Argentine father. My grandfather Máximo Zamudio appears on the list of the proceres of Argentine independence.

Poshumous awards

One of the last photos of Adela, after being crowned, by the President of Bolivia Hernando Siles Reyes, at his 71st year in 1926.

Monument to Zamudio located north of El Prado de Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Adela Zamudio tomb located in the general cemetery of Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Adela Zamudio died in her hometown on June 2, 1928 at the age of 73. In her tomb in the cemetery of the city of Cochabamba you can see the epitaph that she herself wrote:

Flight to dwell in ignored star

free from the supplication of life,

I wait for you there, until I follow my footprint

cry away but not lost.

After 52 years of her death and in homage to the birth of the poetess, the government of President Lidia Gueiler Tejada instituted Women's Day in 1980, which in Bolivia is celebrated every October 11.

In the 1990s, a five bolivianos bill circulated with the image of Zamudio.

The Municipality of Cochabamba instituted the Adela Zamudio Short Story Award in her honor, which has been awarded since 2006.

Work

Zamudio published only three books in his lifetime:

• Poetic testing, printing company Jacobo Peuser, Buenos Aires, 1887
• Intimates, novel set in Cochabamba, publishing house Velarde, La Paz, 1913; Plural, La Paz, has published it since 1999 in editions prepared by Leonardo García Pabón (fragmentos de la obra en Google Books, edition of Plural, La Paz, 2007)
• Ráfagas, poetry, Paul Olendorff Library, Paris, 1913

Posthumous books:

• Short novels, 10 texts, which are actually stories; prologue by Luis Taborga; editorial Youth, La Paz, 1942
• Pilgrimage, poetry, publishing house La Paz, La Paz, 1943
• Short stories, contains 7 stories, 7 allegorical compositions and a set of thoughts; prologue by Gustavo Adolfo Otero; editorial Youth, La Paz, 1943
• Rendon and Rondin, story, with illustrations of Eddy Viveros; Editions ISLA, La Paz, 1976
• Poetry, IPREBOL, La Paz, 1993
• Poems, Ministerio de la Cultura, Fundación Editorial el Perro y la Rana, Caracas, 2006
• Tales, gathers the texts previously appeared in Short novels (1942) and Short stories (1943), that is, it is a compilation of all the accounts written by Zamudio; edition of Virginia Ayllón, Plural, La Paz, 2013