Barrera Barerra, Eulalia Beatriz (1918–)

Eulalia Barrera B., a Quito-born Ecuadorian writer and newspaperwoman, had a period of fertile literary activity writing tradiciones and short stories as well as editing collections of them with her sister Inés. The writing of leyendas (legends), integral to Romanticism, was imported to Latin America, where the genre helped inspire a new trend, the tradición, "invented" by the Peruvian Ricardo Palma and the Venezuelan Juan Vicente Camacho. The tradición, unlike the mere leyenda with no equivalent in Anglo-American literature, added to the story line a deeper meaning that could be linguistic analysis, satire, or even a political explanation. Barrera, instead of nationalizing the form as Palma did, revised it from the perspective of gender analysis. Her most interesting tradiciones, "Flor de amor" and "Capilla del Consuelo," turn to Spanish medieval and Renaissance themes to examine the social structures that subordinate women. By looking at previous times and places, Barrera could criticize the place of women in contemporary Ecuadorian society. Many of her pieces published in the Ecuadorian press lie uncollected and forgotten, waiting to be rediscovered.

See alsoPalma, Ricardo; Tinajero Martínez de Allen, Eugenia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrera B., Inés, and Eulalia Barrera B. Tradiciones y leyendas del Ecuador. Quito: Empresa Editora "El Comercio," 1947.

Barrera B., Inés, and Eulalia Barrera B. Los mejores cuentos ecuatorianos. Quito: Empresa Editora "El Comercio," 1948.

Ward, Thomas. "Perú y Ecuador." La narrativa histórica de escritoras latinoamericanas, edited by Gloria da Cunha, pp. 271-305. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor, 2004.

                                         Thomas Ward