Author: Mílada Bazant
File Type: pdf
Laura Mendez de Cuencapoet, teacher, editor, writer, and feministdared to bypass the cultural traditions of her time. In the early 1870s, when conservative religious thought permeated all aspects of Mexican life, she was one of very few women to gain admission to an extraordinary constellation of male poets, playwrights, and novelists, who were also the publicists and statesmen of the time. She entered this world through her poetry, intellect, curiosity, assertiveness, but her personal life was fraught with tragedy she had a child out of wedlock by poet Manuel Acuna, who killed himself shortly thereafter. She later married another poet, Agustin Fidencio Cuenca, and had seven other children. All but two of her children died, as did Agustin. As a penniless young widow facing social rejection, Laura became a teacher and an important force in Mexicos burgeoning educational reform program. She moved abroadfirst to San Francisco, then St. Louis, then Berlin. In these places where she was not known and women had begun to move confidently in the public sphere, she could walk freely, observe, mingle, make friends across many circles, learn, think, and express her opinions. She wrote primarily for a Mexican public and always returned to Mexico because it was her countrys future that she strove to create. Now, for the first time in English, Milada Bazant shares with us the trajectory of a leading Mexican thinker who applied the power of the pen to human feeling, suffering, striving, and achievement. **Review This well-documented, raw, and enthralling biography of a Mexican woman writer at the forefront of social and public change speaks to the work remaining today in our feminist historical scholarship to make womens voices heard.Cristina Devereaux Ramirez, author of Occupying Our Space The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists and Activists, 18751942 This outstanding biography brings to life the Bohemian Laura Mendez de Cuenca as well as the Mexican society and culture of her time. Bazant provides fascinating and significant information on the daily lives of artists, intellectuals, women, mothers, and families in the midst of urban change, modern developments, and political upheaval through revolution.William H. Beezley, co-author of Mexico The Essentials About the Author Milada Bazant is a professor at El Colegio Mexiquense, A.C., in Zinacantepec, Mexico. A prolific author and editor, her most recent publications are Laura Mendez de Cuenca mujer indomita y moderna (18531928). Vida cotidiana y entorno educativo and Historia de la educacion durante el Porfiriato, Mexico.