Orozco, Olga (1920–1999)

Olga Orozco (b. 17 March 1920–15 August 1999), Argentine poet. Born in La Pampa, she began her career as a student of literature in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires. She joined a group of writers that published their work in the literary magazine Canto, which later would be identified with the Generation of 1940. Her first publication was Desde lejos (1946; From Far Away), followed by Las muertes (1951; The Deaths), and Los juegos peligrosos (1962; Dangerous Games). In 1964 she won the first Municipal Prize for Poetry. La oscuridad es otro sol (1967; Darkness Is Another Light) won the second Municipal Prose Award, and in 1971 she received the Grand Prize of Honor from the Argentine Foundation for Poetry. Her next works were Museo salvaje (1974; Wild Museum), Cantos a Berenice (1977), and Mutaciones de la realidad (1979; Mutations of the Reality).

In 1979, in recognition of her poetic development, the first collection of her complete poetry was published, establishing her as one of the main voices in Argentine poetry. Obra poética was awarded the Grand Prize of the National Fund of the Arts in 1980 and the Esteban Echeverría Award in 1981. Two later books are La noche a la deriva (1983; Night Adrift) and En el revés del cielo (1987; In the Underside of Heaven). Among the themes that characterize Orozco's poetry are the religious concerns of a poet searching for primordial unity and the incorporation of elements from astrology, witchcraft, alchemy, and the tarot, which in combination create metamorphic imagery that displays uncanny perceptions of reality.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stella Maris Colombo, Metáfora y cosmovisión en la poesía de Olga Orozco (1983).

Additional Bibliography

Orozco, Olga Eclipses y fulgores: Antología, (Eclipses and Splendors: Anthology). Colección Tierra Firme, Buenos Aires, 1998.

Orozco, Olga. También luz es un abismo, (Also Light Is an Abyss). Buenos Aires: Emece Editores, 1994.

Orozco, Olga, and Zabaljauregui. Relámpagos de lo invisible: Antología, (Flash of Lighten of the Invisible: Anthology). Buenos Aires: Colección Tierra Firme, 1997.

                               Magdalena GarcÍa Pinto