Palacios, Antonia (1915–2001)

Antonia Palacios (b. 13 May 1915; d. 2001), Venezuelan writer and poet. From a very young age, Palacios was associated with the literary circles of the city. In 1936, she traveled to Europe, where she met César Vallejo, Luis Aragón, and Pablo Neruda. Her account of these contacts is contained in her first work, París y tres recuerdos (1945). Upon her return, she joined the Women's Cultural Society and presided at the first Venezuelan Women's Congress. She contributed to the newspaper El Nacional and devoted herself to writing Ana Isabel, una niña decente (1949), which was declared obligatory reading material for secondary students by the Venezuelan Ministry of Education in 1962. After the publication of Viaje al frailejón (1955), Palacios maintained a prolonged silence until Crónica de las horas was published in 1964. She pursued her literary activities and in 1976 coordinated the literary workshop at the Rómulo Gallegos Center. That same year she became the first woman to receive the National Literature Prize. In her home she founded the literary workshop Calicanto, a forum for young poets and writers. The results of this experience were published in the magazine Hojas de Calicanto. Her career and her work are outstanding components of Venezuelan literary life in the twentieth century.

See alsoNeruda, Pablo; Vallejo, César.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Juan Liscano, Panorama de la literatura venezolana actual (1973).

Julio Miranda, Proceso a la narrativa venezolana (1975).

José Ramón Medina, Ochenta años de literatura venezolana (1980).

Verónica Jaffé and Dora Dávila, El relato imposible (1991).

Additional Bibliography

González Pérez, María Luisa. Fortaleza del silencio: Aproximación a la poesía de Antonia Palacios. Caracas, Venezuela: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 2001.

Perdomo, Alicia. Análisis de Ana Isabel, una niña decente. Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Panapo, 1998.

                                         InÉs Quintero