Luisa Carnés (3 January 1905 – 12 March 1964) was a Spanish fiction writer and journalist.

Early life and work

Carnés was born in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, the daughter of a barber and a seamstress and the oldest of six children. Economic hardship in her family caused her to leave school at age eleven to become a hatmaker's apprentice. An

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, she was an avid reader of Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Gorky, among others, and began to write in the evenings.Plaza Plaza, Antonio (2016). "A propósito de la narrativa del 27. Luisa Carnés (1905-1964): Revisión de una escritora postergada" Epilogue in ''Tea Rooms: Working-Class Women'' by Luisa Carnés (Xixón (Gijón), Spain, Hoja de Lata Editorial, 2016). indle/ref> In 1928 she published a collection of short stories, ''Peregrinos de Calvario'', and in 1930, her first novel, ''Natacha.'' Both were published by her employer, the Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones (CIAP), where she did editorial work and where she met her first husband, the graphic artist Ramón Puyol (1907-1981). In 1931, after the publisher went bankrupt, she and Puyol moved from Madrid to

Algeciras Algeciras () is a city and a municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain belonging to the province of Cádiz, Andalusia. Located in the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, near the Strait of Gibraltar, it is the largest city on the Bay of G ...

. In 1932 she separated from Puyol and returned to Madrid. Unable to support herself by writing, she began waitressing in a tea room, an experience that inspired what is generally regarded as her best work, ''Tea Rooms. Mujeres obreras'' (''Tea Rooms. Working-Class Women''). She was a member of the

Communist Party of Spain The Communist Party of Spain (; PCE) is a communist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is currently part of Sumar. Two of its politicians are Spanish government ministers: Yolanda Díaz (Minister of L ...

(PCE) and an advocate for women's suffrage. An avid defender of the

Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII. It was dissol ...

, after 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 ...

broke out in 1936 she wrote articles and plays in its defense. When the Spanish Republic fell in 1939, she crossed the border to France and from there sailed to Mexico, where, like many Spanish Republicans, she was granted asylum. She lived in Mexico City until her death in 1964 in a car accident. Long forgotten in Spain, since 2002 much of her work has been brought back into print. In 2019 a commemorative plaque was placed on the building where she was born, at Calle Lope de Vega, 31, Madrid. In 2020 her short story "Without a Compass" was published in an English translation by Catherine Nelson in ''Barricade: A Journal of Antifascism & Translation.''

Bibliography

* ''Cumpleaños. Los bancos del Prado. Los vendedores de miedo'', Publicaciones de la Asociación de Directores de Escena de España, Madrid, 2002. * ''El eslabón perdido,'' Editorial Renacimiento, Sevilla, 2002. * ''Tea Rooms. Mujeres obreras'', Hoja de Lata, Asturias, 2016 * ''De Barcelona a la Bretaña francesa'', Editorial Renacimiento, 2017 * ''Trece cuentos (1931-1963)'', Hoja de Lata, Asturias, 2017. * ''De Barcelona a la Bretaña francesa. Memorias'', Biblioteca del exilio, Sevilla, 2017. * ''Rosalía. Raíz apasionada de Galicia'', Hoja de Lata, Asturias, 2018. * ''Rojo y gris'', Editorial Renacimiento, Sevilla, 2018. * ''Donde brotó el laurel'', Editorial Renacimiento, Sevilla, 2018. * ''Natacha'', Editorial Renacimiento, Sevilla, 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carnes, Luisa Spanish fiction writers Writers from Madrid Journalists from Madrid 1905 births 1964 deaths Spanish emigrants to Mexico Spanish feminists Road incident deaths in Mexico Las Sinsombrero members