Amelia Francisca Marchena Sánchez de Leyba, known as Amelia Francasci (October 4, 1850 – February 28, 1941) was a writer, considered the first female

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

novelist. She is known for introducing the autobiographical genre to the national literature of the

. Francasci was a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, and she faced significant criticism for writing

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

at a time when women were expected to write poetry. She was also criticized for her work in erotic literature.

Early life

Amelia Francisca de Marchena Sánchez was born in

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 (Distrito Nacional) , websi ...

in 1850, the daughter of Rafael de Marchena Peláez, who was a Dutch Jew of Sephardi background, and Justa Sánchez de la Parra, who was Dominican. She had four siblings, including Eugenio de Marchena and Emilia de Cohén. She chose the pen name Amelia Francasci based on an anagram of her second name.

Career

Francasci studied in the Dutch Antilles, where she was educated by

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

monks at the Welgelegen boarding school in

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...

. She spoke Spanish, Dutch, and French fluently, at a time when few women even knew how to write. Politically, Francasci was a liberal, a member of the Liberal Party of the Republic of the time. She belonged to the country's ruling class, and her skills, literary work, and position in public life marked her as a cultured woman. Though women at the time had little or no rights, and the constitution did not recognize them as subjects, she still was deeply politically informed. Francasci worked for many years as a writer for the Dominican publication ''

Listín Diario ''Listín Diario'' (Lit. ''Small Daily List'') is one of the leading newspapers in the Dominican Republic, and the oldest still being published. She published her first novel, ''Madre culpable'', in 1892. She then produced a number of notable books in the early 1900s, including ''Francisca Martinoff'' in 1901, considered her most important novel, as well as ''Monseñor de Meriño íntimo'', a sort of biography of

Fernando Arturo de Meriño Fernando Arturo de Meriño y Ramírez (January 9, 1833 in Antonsí – August 20, 1906) was a Dominican priest and politician. He served as President of the Dominican Republic from September 1, 1880, until September 1, 1882. He served as the Pre ...

, in 1926. Her work is considered to be in the tradition of '' costumbrismo''. Many of her books took on an innovative autobiographical and introspective tone, including ''Recuerdos e impresiones: historia de una novella''. However, she faced criticism and rejection in the literary world for pushing the limits of what was expected of female writers at the time. Contemporary critics charged her with failing to write stories set in her native country, opting instead for distant locations such as Madrid. They also condemned the inclusion of erotic fantasies in her writing, transgressive for a female author at the time.

Personal life

After remaining stubbornly single until age 36, in 1886 she married Rafael María Leyba Amarante, who was 11 years her junior. He died in 1909, and while the couple left no officially known descendants, the possible existence of heirs to Amelia Francasci has been rumored in the past. Though much of her correspondence was lost in

1930 Dominican Republic hurricane Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 '' Ab urbe condi ...

, she left behind a great many love letters addressed to the French author

Pierre Loti Pierre Loti (; pseudonym of Louis Marie-Julien Viaud ; 14 January 1850 – 10 June 1923) was a French naval officer and novelist, known for his exotic novels and short stories.This article is derived largely from the ''Encyclopædia Britannica El ...

, though it is disputed whether her epistolary relationship with the faraway writer was a cover for another romance. After her husband's death, Francasci lived an almost completely isolated life. For decades, she rarely left her house in Santo Domingo's

Ciudad Colonial Ciudad Colonial (Spanish for "Colonial City") is the historic central neighborhood of the Dominican Republic's capital Santo Domingo. It is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the Americas. The area has been decla ...

neighborhood, where she remained until her death in 1941. A street in Santo Domingo, in the

Los Prados Los Prados is a Sector in the city of Santo Domingo. This is in the Distrito Nacional of the Dominican Republic. This neighborhood is in particular populated by individuals from the upper middle class In sociology, the upper middle class is t ...

neighborhood, is named Calle Amelia Francasci in her honor.

Selected works

* ''Madre culpable'' (1892) * ''Francisca Martinoff'' (1901) * ''Recuerdos e impresiones: historia de una novella'' (1901) * ''Cierzo en primavera'' (1902) * ''Monseñor de Meriño intimo'' (1926)

External links

Amelia Francasci on WorldCat

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Francasci, Amelia 1850 births 1941 deaths Dominican Republic women writers Dominican Republic novelists Dominican Republic women novelists Jewish women writers Dominican Republic people of Spanish descent Dominican Republic people of Jewish descent Dominican Republic people of Dutch-Jewish descent White Dominicans