María Luisa Elío Bernal (17 August 1926 – 17 July 2009) was a Spanish writer and actress exiled in Mexico. She wrote two books and the script of the award-winning autobiographical film ''El balcón vacío'' (The Empty Balcony), which was the first film to depict the lives of Spanish exiles during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. She also performed on Mexican television and Mexican films. Elío was involved in several cultural and literary circles. She was also an inspiration for

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

. His masterwork ''

One Hundred Years of Solitude ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' (, ) is a 1967 in literature, 1967 novel by Colombian people, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the Family saga, multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio ...

'' was dedicated to Elío and her husband.

Biography

Born in

Pamplona Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...

on 17 August 1926, María Luisa was the third and last daughter of Luis Elío Torres and Carmen Bernal López de Lago, who had married in 1920. Her father, a lawyer and judge, suffered for his left-wing tendencies during the

in Pamplona and was imprisoned, but managed to escape. In late 1939 he was smuggled to the border, and after a brief time in the

Gurs Gurs () in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France. History Gurs was the site of the Gurs internment camp. Nothing remains of the camp; after World War II, a forest was planted on the site where it stood. Geography Gurs ...

concentration camp, he made his way to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and was reunited with his family. On February 16, 1940, they departed for

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. After arriving in Mexico, María Luisa studied drama with

Magda Donato Carmen Eva Nelken Mansberger (6 February 1898 – 3 November 1966), known by the pseudonym Magda Donato, was a Spanish writer, journalist, playwright, and actress who went into exile in Mexico after the Spanish Civil War. She was the sister of w ...

Margarita Nelken Margarita Nelken (5 July 1894 – 5 March 1968) was a Spanish feminist and writer. She was a well known intellectual and a central figure in the earliest Spanish women's movement in the 1930s. Early life and education Nelken was born María Ter ...

's sister, at the

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, ), located in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, is the Mexican institution in charge of coordinating artistic and cultural activities (both at the political and the educati ...

. Months later, she attended the academy of Seki Sano, a Japanese exile living in Mexico.

Octavio Paz Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, a ...

, then director of the theater group ''Poesía en Voz Alta'' (''Poetry Out Loud''), invited her to join the troup. During that time, she worked closely with

Juan José Arreola Juan José Arreola Zúñiga (September 21, 1918 – December 3, 2001) was a Mexican writer, academic, and actor. He is considered Mexico's premier experimental short story writer of the 20th century. Arreola is recognized as one of the first Lat ...

Leonora Carrington Mary Leonora Carrington (6 April 191725 May 2011) was a British-born, naturalised Mexican Surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movem ...

Carlos Fuentes Carlos Fuentes Macías (; ; November 11, 1928 – May 15, 2012) was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are ''The Death of Artemio Cruz'' (1962), '' Aura'' (1962), '' Terra Nostra'' (1975), '' The Old Gringo'' (1985) and '' Christop ...

Juan García Ponce Juan García Ponce (22 September 1932 – 27 December 2003) was a Mexican novelist, short-story writer, essayist, translator and critic of Mexican art. Career García Ponce was born in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. His most notable works include ' ...

Elena Garro Elena Garro (December 11, 1916 – August 22, 1998) was a Mexican author, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, short story writer, and novelist. She has been described as one of the pioneers and an early leading figure of the Magical Realism move ...

Luis Felipe Vivanco Luis Felipe Vivanco (22 August 1907 in San Lorenzo de El Escorial – 21 November 1975 in Madrid) was a Spanish architect and poet. He was the son of a judge whose peripatetic career took him to different corners of Spain during his childhood. In 1 ...

Alfonso Reyes Alfonso Reyes Ochoa (17 May 1889 in Monterrey, Nuevo León – 27 December 1959 in Mexico City) was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and has been acclaimed as one of the ...

and Juan Soriano. In 1952, married Jomí García Ascot, also the child of exiles. Those who came to Mexico as children from Spain as exiles, are sometimes called ''The Nepantla Generation'', a

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

word which describes the state of belonging to two places at the same time. Neither of one, nor the other. Elío described herself as being caught between past and present. In 1960, her husband was invited to go to

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

and participate in a film, ''Cuba 58'' being filmed there. Originally five segments were planned for the film, but the final composition contains only three, two of which were created by García Ascot. García planned a new project, a musical comedy in the style of ''

West Side Story ''West Side Story'' is a Musical theatre, musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a Book (musical theatre), book by Arthur Laurents. Inspired by William Shakespeare's play ''Romeo an ...

'', but had to abandon the project as the political situation in Cuba deteriorated. The couple returned to Mexico. Based on a Elío's microfiction, she wrote the script of the first film about Spanish exiles recorded from the exile. The couple began working in a collaboration with

Emilio García Riera Emilio García Riera (born 17 November 1931 in Ibiza, Spain – died on 11 October 2002 in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico) was a Spanish-born Mexican actor, writer and cinema critic. He has written exhaustively on Mexican cinema of 1929 and 1976, leav ...

to produce it. In 1968, Elío and García Ascot divorced. In 1970, she took their son Diego (born 1963) with her and made her first return trip to Spain, where she stayed at García Márquez's house in Barcelona. As a result she would publish ''Tiempo de llorar'' in 1988. Her second book came out in 1995. Elío died in

Coyoacán Coyoacán ( ; , Otomi: ) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. The former village is now the borough's "historic center". The name comes from Nahuatl and most likely means "place of coyotes", when the Aztecs named a pre- ...

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, on 17 July 2009.

Creative work

Elío started writing her short-stories during her stay in Cuba. In Havana, she met the literary group ''Orígenes''. In several interviews she noted that she started writing because of the explosive atmosphere of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

and the supporting friends she found there, among others Eliseo Diego, Fina García Marruz, and

Alejo Carpentier Alejo Carpentier y Valmont (, ; December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, of French ...

. Her literary work first appeared in Mexican newspapers and cultural magazines after her return from Cuba, when she was writing the screenplay for the autobiographical film ''The Empty Balcony''. These publications are short stories and microfictions. Her first book, ''Tiempo de llorar'' (Time to Weep), is an autobiographical narrative she began writing during her first trip back to Spain. In 1988, she published her experiences during this bittersweet return and the breakdown she suffered as a result. Her second book, ''Cuaderno de apuntes en carne viva'' (Notebook in Living Flesh) published in 1995, attempted to explore the journey of putting her broken pieces back together. The film, ''El balcón vacío'' (The Empty Balcony) is Elío's autobiographical story. She wrote the script of the film. She also acted in the film. Shooting only on weekends because the Elío, García Ascot, and García Riera all had regular jobs, the cult film took a year to be produced. Although it was not a commercial success, it did win international awards.

Creative network

Elío was involved in various cultural and literary circles. As an active participant in a transnational creative network, Elío maintained a relationship with Spanish exiles, like José Bergamín,

Luis Buñuel Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians and directors to be one of the greatest and ...

José Gaos José Gaos (26 December 1900, Gijón, Spain – 10 June 1969, Mexico City) was a Spanish philosopher who obtained political asylum in Mexico during the Spanish Civil War and became one of the most important Mexican philosophers of the 20th cen ...

and especially

Emilio Prados Emilio Prados (4 March 1899 – 24 April 1962) was a Spanish poet and editor, a member of the Generation of '27. Life Born in the Andalusian city of Málaga in 1899, Prados was offered a place at Madrid's famous Residencia de estudiantes in 1 ...

, who was a pivotal figure for her. She also made connections with the second generation of exiles, such as Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, José de la Colina, Vicente Gandía, Jomí García Ascot (her husband for 16 years),

, Tomás Segovia and Ramón Xirau. While in Havana, she established ties with Eliseo Diego, Fina García Marruz,

, Cintio Vitier, and most of the members of the literary group ''Orígenes''. Nonetheless, many of her cultural alliances originated in Mexico City, a diverse hub of nationals and displaced individuals who played a significant role in shaping post-revolutionary Mexico. Among the most relevant writers and artists, her circle included

Salvador Elizondo Salvador Elizondo Alcalde (December 19, 1932, in Mexico City – March 29, 2006) was a Mexican writer of the 60s Generation of Mexican literature. Regarded as one of the creators of the most influential cult noirè, experimental, intelligent ...

Álvaro Mutis Álvaro Mutis Jaramillo (August 25, 1923 – September 22, 2013) was a Colombian poet, novelist, and essayist. His best-known work is the novel sequence '' The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll'', which revolves around the character o ...

, and Juan Soriano, among others. Elío and her husband were personal friends of the writer

. His masterwork, ''

'' was dedicated to them with the inscription “para (''to'') jomí garcía ascot y maría luisa elío” (all in lowercase letters). In the eighteen months that the Colombian author took to write the book, they went to his house every night and critiqued the versions of the story as it developed. Elio's friendship with García Márquez continued over the years. When he moved to Spain in 1967, Gabriel and Mercedes hosted her at their home in Barcelona. Elio was also among those invited to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 1982.

Awards

In 2007, the Spanish Government decorated María Luisa Elio Bernal with the Officer's Cross of the

Order of Isabella the Catholic The Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic (; Abbreviation, Abbr.: OYC) is a knighthood and one of the three preeminent Order of merit, orders of merit bestowed by the Kingdom of Spain, alongside the Order of Charles III (established in 1771) and ...

for her services to Spain.

Selected works

*''Tiempo de llorar,'' México, El Equilibrista, 1988. *''Cuaderno de apuntes en carne viva,'' México, El Equilibrista, 1995. *''Tiempo de llorar y otros relatos'', Madrid, Turner, 2002.

Filmography

*''No matarás'' (1943) *''Girls Boarding School'' (1943) *''La guerra de los pasteles'' (1944) *''El jagüey de las ruinas'' (1945) *''En el balcón vacío'' (1961) *''Remedios Varo'' (1967) Narrator (voice)

References

Literature

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Elio, Maria Luisa 1926 births 2009 deaths Spanish women writers 20th-century Mexican women writers People from Pamplona Exiles of the Spanish Civil War in Mexico Recipients of the Order of Isabella the Catholic Exiles of the Spanish Civil War in Cuba Exiles of the Spanish Civil War in France 20th-century Spanish women writers 20th-century Spanish actresses