Teresa Martínez de Varela (also known under the pseudonym, Lisa de Andráfueda, 1 July 1913–16 June 1998) was an

Afro-Colombian Afro-Colombians or African-Colombians ( es, afrocolombianos, links=no) are Colombians of full or partial sub-Saharan African descent ( Blacks, Mulattoes, Pardos, and Zambos). History Africans were enslaved in the early 16th Century in Colomb ...

teacher, writer, and social leader. She was one of the first black women in Colombia to publish. Misunderstood, and often denied the ability to publish her works, the intellectual left many unpublished manuscripts at her death. For many years, she was known only as the mother of , founder of

Grupo Niche Grupo Niche is a salsa group founded in 1978 in Bogotá, Colombia. In 1982, the group settled in the city of Cali, Colombia, enjoying great popularity throughout Latin America. It was founded by Jairo Varela and Alexis Lozano. Varela remained ...

. Rediscovered in 2009, when Úrsula Mena de Lozano published her biography, some of her works were then collected in an anthology published by the Ministry of Culture in 2010. She is now regarded as one of the pioneering voices to bring African identity in Colombia into the literary landscape of the country and one of the primary intellectuals of her era.

Early life

Teresa de Jesús Martínez Arce was born on 1 July 1913 in

Quibdó Quibdó () is the capital city of Chocó Department, in Western Colombia, and is located on the Atrato River. The municipality of Quibdó has an area of 3,337.5 km² and a population of 129,237, predominantly Afro Colombian, including Zambo ...

, capital of the

Chocó Department Choco Department is a department of Western Colombia known for its large Afro-Colombian population. It is in the west of the country, and is the only Colombian department to have coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It ...

, in western Colombia to Ana Teresa Arce Campaña and Eladio Martínez Vélez. Her father was of

heritage and worked as an engineer on boats along the

Atrato River The Atrato River () is a river of northwestern Colombia. It rises in the slopes of the Western Cordillera and flows almost due north to the Gulf of Urabá (or Gulf of Darién), where it forms a large, swampy delta. Its course crosses the Ch ...

, operated a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

and was a musician. Her mother was of Spanish descent and encouraged Marínez to read from her father's large library from a young age. Not allowed to play with the black children in her neighborhood, she was aware of her differences, as she stood out from her schoolmates because she was

mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...

. She was a voracious reader, consuming magazines and newspapers from the capital, as well as works by

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ...

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even ...

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...

and

Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and became best known for her novel '' Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852), which depicts the har ...

. Martínez attended the Presentation School in Quibdó, but was not allowed to continue her education there due to her mixed race. She moved to Cartagena to complete her secondary studies at Pius X College ( es, Colegio Pío), gaining a mastery in both English and French. She then attended

normal school A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

in Cartagena, before returning to Quibdó to begin researching the differences in slavery on Colombia's Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Martínez married the merchant Pedro Varela Restrepo and the couple would have six children: Eladio Enrique, Pedro Francisco, , Martha, Norma Gloria and Martha Lucía.

Career

Martínez began her career as a teacher in 1932, at the ''Escuela Urbana'' (Urban School) in Bagadó. Discontent to be a housewife and cook, when she and her husband separated, shortly after her youngest child, Martha Lucía was born, she taught Spanish, painting and weaving at the ''Escuela de Artes y Oficios'' (School of Arts and Crafts) in Quibdó. Publishing her first novel, ''Guerra y amor'' (War and Love) in 1947, she wrote about the ravages of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

in Europe. In 1962, Martínez took the children and moved to Bogotá, where she taught at the Colegio Femenino de Bachillerato y Comercio. After several years there, they returned to the Chocó Department where she became the director of the ''Normal de Istmina'' (Normal School of Istmina) and later served as head of the ''Normal de Señoritas'' (Women's Normal School), in Quibdó and as the Secretary of Education for the Chocó Department. Martínez's literary output, though she had difficulty in finding publishers, was prolific. She published poems and essays assessing the cultural, historical and political issues facing Colombia, incorporated religious and romantic themes, as well as humor. Her work showed a deep understanding of the history of the country, as well as its literary and musical traditions. She published dramatic works including ''El nueve de Abril'' (April 9th), a protest of the assassination in 1948 of presidential candidate

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala (23 January 1903 – 9 April 1948) was a left-wing Colombian politician and charismatic leader of the Liberal Party. He served as the mayor of Bogotá from 1936–37, the national Education Minister from 194 ...

; ''Las fuerzas armadas'' (The Armed Forces); ''La madre fósil'' (The Mother Fossil), as well as an opera, ''La virgen loca'' (The Crazy Madonna). Among her poetic works are ''Alucinaciones o dimensión desconocida'' (Hallucinations or Unknown Dimension), ''Ciudades de Colombia'' (Cities of Colombia), ''Fragua de Marte'' (Forge of Mars), ''Pirotecnia de la fe'' (Pyrotechnics of Faith), and ''Vivencias de una tormenta de amor'' (Experiences from a Storm of Love), which combine Latin American

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

with traditional African rhythms. In 1983, she published ''Mi Cristo negro'' (My Black Christ), as a commentary on the execution of Manuel Saturio Valencia. Valencia, an Afro-Colombian lawyer, "was the last person executed under the death penalty in Colombia". The book became well known to black Colombians, contributing to awareness of racism and served a catalyst for black pride to reemerge in the region. Though Martínez believed she was misunderstood and had been largely overlooked by literary critics and editors because of her gender and race, she hoped that her work would eventually be recognized. She did receive some recognition during her lifetime, as she was included in a book ''Mujeres Intelectuales de América'' (Woman Intellecutals of America) by the Central Information Bureau of

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

, Venezuela. She was invited by the poet , who at the time was serving as the first director of the Colombian Institute of Culture to tour the country and give recitations of her poetry. In 1993, she came to the attention of writer Úrsula Mena, who read some of Martínez's poetry, while preparing a presentation on Afro-Colombian writers. The two women struck up an acquaintance and Mena became determined to write a biography to preserve Martínez's legacy. Before she could write the book, she and Martínez's daughters, sorted and cataloged the unpublished works. They released ''Cantos de amor y soledad'' (Songs of Love and Loneliness), the most complete collection of her works, before Mena returned to writing the biography.

Death and legacy

Martínez died on 16 June 1998 in Quibdó. Largely forgotten except as the mother of Jairo Varela, in 2009, Úrsula Mena de Lozano published a biography of Martínez, ''En honor a la verdad'' (In Honor of the Truth), reviving interest and evaluation of the author. The following year, the Ministry of Culture included a biography of Martínez and some of her works in an anthology of Afro-Colombian poets. She is now recognized as one of the pioneer voices of Afro-Colombian writers and as one of the most important intellectuals of her era.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez de Varela, Teresa 1913 births 1998 deaths People from Quibdó Colombian writers 20th-century women writers Afro-Colombian women Social leaders