Early life
Vicens was born during the Mexican revolution and grew up in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Her father was Spanish, her mother Mexican. Her father was a small shop owner, her mother a primary school teacher. They had 5 daughters, including Josefina. The Vicens family lived on a farm throughout Vicens’ earliest years. They were staunch Catholics. The family was very musical, and her mother kept a notebook of poetry and song lyrics; perhaps this influenced Vicens’ own appreciation for writing. In the early 1920s, the Vicens family moved to Mexico City and settled in the prosperous Colonia Roma neighborhood. Here, Vicens’ parents opened a store, where they worked. It fell to Vicens and the other older daughters to care for their younger sisters while their parents were at work. Vicens studied at a business school after finishing grade school; there, she learned shorthand and typing. Later, she would support herself off of the skills she learned in school, gaining her independence in an era when women were just beginning to gain suffrage but did not usually hold influential roles outside the home. Independence was very important to Vicens, who saw the ability to support herself as a potential escape from the confines of her family's household. After the family settled in Mexico City, Vicens’ father started working for a hot sauce manufacturing company of which he later became the owner. When she was still in her early teens, Vicens began to work at the factory with her father. There, Vicens perceived great inequality between the managers of the factory––including her father––and its workers, causing conflict for her. In the mid-twenties, she left the factory and her family, and went for a time to Chapultepec. There, she found work at an auto-transport company. She would return to her family and in 1925 she found work at a psychiatric hospital as a secretary, where she would remain for a year and a half. She agreed to work at the hospital only if, she recounted later in an interview, the director would let her speak to patients after she had finished her secretarial tasks for the day. It is likely that this experience helped to inform many of the major themes in her written work, including a particular fascination with “life and death, insanity and sanity.” After working at the hospital, Vicens found work at the Department of Agriculture. There, she was known for her humor, and she caught the attention of her supervisor. This was also where she, singled out because she was the youngest worker in the division, earned the nickname “La Peque.” In 1938, she was chosen to be the Secretary for Women's Action of the National Confederation of Farmers. Thus began her life in politics. It was a political life defined, as she put it, “by a rebellious fight for social justice.” Influenced by her experiences with inequality at earlier jobs, including her work at her father's factory, Vicens used her position at the National Confederation of Farmers to fight for farmers’ rights. She worked, in particular, to promote women's rights in that sector. Also in 1938, she became the head of the Women's Section of the Agricultural Sector of the Mexican Revolutionary Party. She would hold those two positions simultaneously. Art formed an important part of this struggle, and she allied with some artists who were her contemporaries in order to advocate for social justice, including: Juan Soriano, Antonio Peláez, and Ramón Gaya. She was surrounded by artists and writers even when she was in politics. In 1937, Vicens married Jose Ferrel. Ferrel was widely believed to be homosexual by those in his social circle, and while the marriage surprised many acquaintances for that reason, Vicens and Ferrel were close friends. By marrying, Vicens was finally able to move out of her parents’ house, thus gaining the independence that she had so desired from her family. Her life was to continue to be defined by her desire for independence and her fierce individuality. In 1938, Vicens published for the first time––releasing a collection of her thoughts on politics. This marked the start of her writing career, but her most important publications would not be made until the fifties.Later life, and death
Literature
Vicens wrote two works of fiction, which each feature male protagonists and are largely introspective. These novels are considered to be important works in the history of Mexican literature. Josefina Vicens fully developed her writings in the 1950s, the decade in which Mexico City became the center of modernity in the country, where many intellectuals and artists met and collaborated. Both the studies and influences of the period were very diverse: , surrealism, French existentialism, the philosophy of Nietzsche, etc. Many studies consider Vicens’ marriage and solid friendship with Jose Ferrel and authors like RImbaud and Gide to be her point of contact with the group of los Contemporáneos. She also formed friendships with many artists and painters like Pedro Coronel, Juan Soriano, José Luis Cuevas and Antonio Peláez, as well as writers like Sergio Fernández, Pita amor, Edmundo Valadés, Octavio Paz and Juan Rulfo. This interaction with renowned artists was linked to her visits to café París, which was a common meeting space for many artists of the age.''El libro vacio'' (1958)
''El libro vacío'' ( David Lauer, University of Texas Press (1992), ) won the Villaurutia prize for literature. The novel follows José García as he struggles with his inability to write. The book, a work of metafiction, addresses the struggle to express universal ideas while living in what José considers a mediocre life. He writes of the tension between imagination and real life, unsure how to reconcile his desire for truth with his search for a compelling story. He lives with his two sons and wife, whom he refers to as “his woman” (“mi mujer”) throughout the book. As he goes about his normal life, he reflects upon past sexual relations, his childhood, and the growth of his two sons. In a 1986 interview with Vicens, she describes the problem of whether to write as something she struggles with just as much as her protagonist. She explains that the title was the first thing she wrote, deciding on the theme of emptiness before starting the book.''Los años falsos'' (1981)
''Los años falsos'' (English: ''The false years'' trans. Peter Earle, Latin American Literary Review Press (1989), – reviewed aScreenplays
Josefina Vicens has been quoted as saying that she made her living off of her screenplays––even if perhaps her novels are better known in translation. Both of her novels have been translated into English; ''The empty book'' in the nineties and ''The False Years'' in the eighties and remain in distribution. Her career in film got its start when she worked for a time as the head of the Mexican Cinematography Production Union. There, she learned the screenwriters’ craft, picking up skills from popular and art film writers that would inform her own work. After she completed her term at its helm, she stayed on at the union as a scriptwriter herself. Later, she took charge of the Academy of the Mexican Cinematographic Arts and Sciences. Vicens’ first successful film was released in 1954, when she found commercial success in her script for ''El rival'' (“The Rival”). Her career as a scriptwriter would take off from there, and she produced screenplays prolifically from then on. Her early films mirrored and to a certain extent were constrained by the conservatism of popular Mexican film in the mid-twentieth century. Many of her early films were about Mexican family life: wives, children, and family drama. Her first screenplay to be considered to the one that broke out from that mold and defined her unique style was ''Las señoras vivanco'' (“The ladies vivanco”). Her screenplays were considered unique in their originality; in those days, most scripts were commissioned by production companies and so Vicens’ stood out because she wrote them without being paid to do so. Some of her most well-known films include ''Los perros de dios'' (“The dogs of God”)'', renuncia por motivos de salud'' (“To renounce for health reasons”)'','' and ''el testamento'' (“The will”). These films addressed political or surrealist themes, and tackled weighty issues about identity, self-definition, and mortality that also appeared in her novels. However, Vicens was probably better-known for her films than her novels in Mexico, as they reached a higher audience, although English-language speakers know her novels better for their translations. Her screenplays were the most popular of her productions during her lifetime, and Vicens would recount that she had written more than ninety scripts. However, according to her, she was proudest of her novels, and wanted to be considered an author and not a screenwriter. Vicens' many scripts include two that were nominated for theJournalism
When Vicens accompanied her father on his first return trip to Spain after 20 years, she was intrigued by the bullfighting scene she found there. She began covering the fights for a local paper under the pen name Pepe Faroles in the early 1940s. After writing insultingly about a prominent bullfighter, she was not welcomed to publish more articles with the newspaper. She decided to co-found a newspaper with a friend, and she revived her pseudonym to bad-mouth a boxer who threatened to beat up Pepe Faroles. When Pepe (Vicens) agreed to meet with the boxer, he was stunned to find out who was behind the pseudonym. Vicens published a number of political articles throughout her career under the pen name “Diógenes García.” She discussed issues of workers’ rights, Mexican political corruption, and a range of societal issues after the Mexican Revolution. Vicens went by many pseudonyms, depending on the subject area about which she was publishing, but she affixed her own name to the articles she wrote about films.Notes
Sources
* Eladio Cortes, ''Dictionary of Mexican Literature'', Greenwood Press (1992),External links