Claribel Alegría


Clara Isabel Alegría Vides, also known by her pseudonym Claribel Alegría, was a Nicaraguan-Salvadoran poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central America. She was awarded the 2006 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Biography

Alegría was born in Estelí, Nicaragua, to a Nicaraguan father, Daniel Alegría, and a Salvadoran mother, Ana María Vides. When Claribel was nine months old, her father was sent into exile for protesting human rights violations occurring during the United States occupation of Nicaragua; as a result, Claribel grew up in Santa Ana, a city in western El Salvador, where her mother came from. Claribel Alegría considered herself to be Nicaraguan-Salvadorean. Although she was too young to read or write, she began composing poetry at the age of six and dictated them to her mother, who would write them down. Alegría consistently cited Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" as the impetus for becoming a poet. At the age of seventeen, she published her first poems in Repertorio Americano, a Central American cultural supplement. Soon after, Mexican educator José Vasconcelos arranged for Alegría to attend finishing school in Hammond, Louisiana. In 1943, she moved to the United States and in 1948 received a B.A. in Philosophy and Letters from George Washington University. Alegría was committed to nonviolent resistance. She had a close association with the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle and took control of the Nicaraguan government in 1979. Alegría returned to Nicaragua in 1985 to aid in the reconstruction of Nicaragua.
Alegría later lived in Managua, Nicaragua. She died on 25 January 2018, aged 93.

Career

Alegría's literary work reflects the style of the popular literary current in Central America during the 1950s and 1960s, "la generacion comprometida". Like many other poets of her generation who are critical of their societies, she made claims for rights using a language which is often counter-literary.
Alegría published many books of poetry: Casting Off, Sorrow, Umbrales, and La Mujer del Río. She also published novels and children's stories, as well as testimonios, such as They Won't Take Me Alive.

Awards

;In English translation
;In anthology