For the last six years, the Monday closest to the fifteenth of October, the feast in honour of Saint Teresa de Jesus, has been celebrated as Women Writers' Day, an initiative organised in collaboration with the Spanish Federation of Women Managers, Executives, Professionals, and Businesswomen and the Classical and Modern Women's Association. This year, it falls on the eighteenth of October, so today we want to give some Spanish women writers their place.
In a well-known district of Madrid, at different times, great women writers who have left their mark on Spanish literature have congregated. We are talking about the Malasaña neighbourhood, where authors such as Rosalía de Castro, Clara Campoamor and Emilia Pardo Bazán lived at some point in their lives. As you can see, they are great writers known for their works and their participation in women's rights movements. Not only have they left their mark in this neighbourhood, but there are also many other women writers who are not well known and today we have decided to give them a little bit of glory in this post so that all those of you who do not know about them, or their works can learn a little more and venture to read their creations.
First, we want to talk about Amalia Domingo Soler, writer, novelist, and women's rights activist. A woman who ventured into the world of spiritualism and who was not considered a writer, although she lived thanks to her publications. For a period of time, she edited an all-women's newspaper, La luz del Porvenir, which attracted considerable attention for some of its publications.
Do you know Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda? Maybe you know her better by her pseudonym "La Peregrina". What a prolific woman! She wrote many novels and plays as well as numerous poems. According to her contemporaries, she was considered the most important woman after Isabel II. Even so, she was not treated as an equal and was denied membership in the Theatre Advisory Council. Undoubtedly her best-known novel, sab, leaves no one indifferent.
The Generation of '27 left us Rosa Chacel, a writer who, although linked to this group, always remained independent of it. This great woman published articles, reviews, and translations. However, her novels did not fit the model of the publishing houses of the time, so they were never published. It was not until three young poets decided to disseminate and support her work La Sinrazón, that two generations later achieved a wide readership.
Carmen de Burgos is another great defender of women's rights. This journalist, writer and translator fought hard for women's equality. Her work La mujer moderna y sus derechos (The modern woman and her rights) and her conferences "La misión social de la mujer" (The social mission of women) and "La mujer en España" (Women in Spain) are essential to know the history of Spanish feminism.
Undoubtedly these great women fought for women's equality. Today, thanks to the fact that we continue to talk about them and we continue to consume their works, they are still fighting for everything they defended in their day.
Did you know these women? Do you want to know more about their wonderful and interesting lives? You can find out more about them and many other important women who lived in Malasaña in the book Maravillosas (Wonderful women) by Ana Rossetti.
Don't hesitate to visit our social networks like Instagram or TikTok where you will find more posts about these Wonderful women.
