Biography of Clorinda Matto de Turner | Peruvian writer.

Peruvian writer, born in Cuzco on September 11, 1852 and died in Buenos Aires on October 25, 1909. Clorinda Matto de Turner was the daughter of Ramón Matto Torres and Grimanesa Usandivaras Gárate, who baptized it with the name of Grimanesa Martina, who would be later changed by the Clorinda. During his childhood he alternated stays in the city of Cuzco and the family Treasury of Paullo-Chico, located in the province of Calca. He studied in the school our Lady of the Mercedes of Cuzco, where it appears registered as student scholarship, up to the age of sixteen, when he left school to devote himself to the work of your home (1868).

In 1871, after marrying the English trader Joseph Turner, Clorinda Matto was moved to the village of ink, where he continued the literary career that began a few years earlier, writing verses and articles that were published under various pseudonyms in regional publications such as El Heraldo, El railway, El Rodadero, El Eco de los Andes and El Mercurio. In April 1876 the writer founded the magazine El Recreo and the following year, visited for the first time the Peruvian capital, where he had the opportunity to participate in the literary gatherings organized by the Argentinean writer Juana Manuela Gorriti (28-II-1877), evenings that would then continue the own Clorinda. By then already collaborated with leading literary publications in the country signing articles with his name or the pseudonym of "Carlota Dimont".

During the war with Chile (1879-83), Clorinda Matto de Turner lived in ink and, after the death of her husband, on March 3, 1881, had to manage the assets of the marriage. At the end of 1883, he moved to Arequipa to take head of drafting of the newspaper La Bolsa, one of the most important in the city. In April 1886 he settled in Lima, city where was quickly incorporated into the main cultural institutions of the Peruvian Literary circle and the Ateneo de Limacapital. In 1888 the Union Iberoamericana de Madrid agreed to name it an honorary member.

In October 1889, Clorinda Matto de Turner took the helm of the weekly El Peru illustrated, the most important literary publication of the country at that time, which suffered a strong setback a few months have reached. The reason was the publication of the story Magdala of the Brazilian writer Henrique Coelho Netto (23-VIII-1890), considered sacrilegious, cause of the Archbishop of Lima Manuel Antonio Bandini to prohibit under penalty of mortal sin the reading, selling and distribution of El Peru illustrated. Although Clorinda Matto claimed that the story had been published without their consent and by mistake, is the church launched a campaign against him, hiding the real reason for the anger: the publication one year before the novel birds without nest, which was denounced the corruption of the clergy. Finally, after being disfellowshipped, on July 11, 1891 Matto presented his resignation to be lifted the ecclesiastical censure against the weekly.

Determined to become independent after its rough step by The Peru illustrated, in February 1892 founded with his brothers their own printing, The equitable, which published the bi-weekly newspaper Los Andes (only lasted a year) from which Clorinda Matto de Turner defended the Government of general Andrés À. Cáceres, with whose party openly sympathized. On March 17, 1895 rebel troops under the command of Piérola Nicolás entered in the Peruvian capital and locked in combat with the Government forces. The rebels looted the House Matto shared with his brother David and seized it, but could flee and take refuge in a friend. Then the President Caceres had been defeated and The equitable printing had been sacked and looted their machines. So, in 1895, Clorinda Matto opted to embark for Valparaíso, from where went to Santiago, then to Mendoza and, finally, to Buenos Aires, where settled.

On December 14, 1895 Matto gave a public lecture in the Buenos Aires Athenaeum under the suggestive title of "The workers of the thought in the South America" in February of the following year, founded the magazine Bucaro American, become the official organ of the protectionist intellectual society, from January 1897 and who would edit until shortly before his death. In 1896 it was incorporated as a teacher of analogy in the Normal School of teachers of the Federal Capital, and was also teaching at the American Normal School and the business school of women.

Matto collaborated in various publications such as La Prensa, La Nación, La Razón and El Tiempo of Buenos Aires, the National Journal of literature and Social sciences in Montevideo, El Cojo illustrated of Caracas and the three Americas, New York, and was even elected a member of the National Council of women of Argentina. In May 1908, he embarked to Europe to visit France, England, Switzerland, Germany and Spain, country where lectured in the Ateneo de Madrid and the Ibero-American Union. At year's end, Clorinda Matto de Turner returned to Buenos Aires to resume their activities, which did not last even a year, since she fell ill, and the following year died of pulmonary congestion. Years later, a legislative resolution of the Congress peruanodispuso the repatriation of the remains of the writer.

Works of Clorinda Matto de Turner

He made his first publications in the traditional genre, which Ricardo Palma had put in vogue in all Latin America. The first book of Clorinda Matto de Turner was Cuzco traditions, legends, biographies, and flyers (Arequipa, 1884), published with a preface by Palma where he called "his best disciple". In the same vein, followed Cuzco traditions, chronicles, looseleaf. Second tome (Lima, 1886), with a foreword by José Antonio de Lavalle. The Peruvian historian Horacio Urteaga Villanueva has shown that most of these traditions are based on the Annals of Cuzco by Diego Esquivel and Navia, then unpublished.

The best work of Clorinda Matto de Turner is his novelistic production, especially birds without nest (1889), published simultaneously in Lima and Buenos Aires and translated into English in 1904. Customs, and romantic novel is set in an imaginary village in the Peruvian Andes, with the intention of showing social ills in the region, with special emphasis on the abuse and exploitation of the Indians for part of the clergy and the political civil service.

The book that told the story, based on a real event, a friar of mad jealousy kills one of his parishioners, caused a huge controversy in Peruvian society and has made that Clorinda Matto de Turner is considered the initiator of modern America indianism, born from the hands of the Bolivian Alcides Arguedas's novel race of bronze. Matto later published other two novels within a naturalistic tendency, nature (Lima, 1891) and inheritance (Lima, 1895), in which revisits the characters of birds without nest and moved to the city of Lima.

Other books of Clorinda Matto de Turner are sketches in pencil of famous Americans (Lima, 1889), set of biographical sketches; the drama in three acts Hima-Sumac (Lima, 1892), which had been premiered at the Teatro de Arequipa in 1884 and in the Olympus of Lima in 1988; Legends and cuts (Lima, 1893); Boreal, miniatures and porcelains (Buenos Aires, 1902), which includes autobiographical stories, profiles and articles; Four lectures on South America (Buenos Aires, 1909) and recreation trip (Valencia, 1909), where he recounts his trip to Europe. Finally, it is worth mentioning the texts prepared for teaching, which include elements of literature according to the regulation of public use of the fair sex instruction (Arequipa, 1884) and analogy. Second year of Spanish grammar in normal schools according to the official programme (Buenos Aires, 1897), to which are added in quechua versions prepared by order of the American Bible Society from the Gospels of John and Luke, Acts of the Apostles and the St. Paul's letter to the Romans.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas