slitting I, I never will crack anyone. And you drop me a mother who crack.
"Jesusa Palancares"
While certain plebeian intellectuals desperately rummage in their genealogical trees for a princely trace or at least European, Princess Hélène Elizabeth Louise Amélie Paula Dolores Poniatowska, better known as "Pony", a direct descendant of that Poniatowski he brought relentless crazy to Catherine of Russia, passes between us and hearty sencillota lady. His approach calls for trust, affection, to touch his face full of freckles and conejiles tics. Oh my, Elena, "The Pony", which was in the tower as any neighbor's daughter that October 2, 1968 ("childish hands because death anina hands"), the tennis shoes that toured the ruins of a city devastated by earthquake of 85 and defended the right to abortion Paulina, the girl raped twice (the second was a moral violation) ... that said NO Villaurrutia Award 1971 which was given, ironically, for his book The Night of Tlatelolco well ... What prize would revive her brother and the thousands of boys massacred? He avoids like the plague to titles of nobility, including the "writer" did not even think "(...) I'm very good, but I know that I have the craft of writing. I have it since 1953 and I practice ", as stated before Joseph Gordon and Guadalupe Alonso. And get back to renounce his crown in the book Dawn in the Zocalo, the 50 days that confronted Mexico (Planeta, 2007): "As a writer, I would have liked to John Berger, but as I went and I think I can not reach so, try to set me how it makes John Berger to portray to others. Since 1953 I look at those who walk down the street, the sweeper with seven dogs, Tere's lemon market in Coyoacan, Lucia sewing at home, those who came to the country to Mexico City and still bring hands to milk cows of shearing sheep, patting tortillas. I try to live thinking about those who have to go to the U.S. because if not die of hunger and those who can not go and die of hunger. "(P. 156).
But, above all, grandmother of several Mexican children whose pictures always carries with him to show them with touching pride: "Look, that is Moon ..."
The love of Mexico was born on May 19, 1932 in Paris. Evremont daughter Jean Poniatowski Sperry, heir to the Polish throne, in exile in France, and also exiled Dolores Love, aka Paulette, the daughter of a family porfiriana. As eldest daughter, Helen correspond to the title of queen of Poland, for which he feels great affection, particularly as it was during a stay there in the sixties, which reaffirms their sense of commitment to the disadvantaged. During World War II, Prince Poniatowski enlists in the army and Paulette, or Paula Poniatowska Amor, as recounted in his autobiography Do not forget me (Plaza & Janes, 1996), which is impossible not to connect with Flor de lis, the only autobiography Elena, fled, along with their daughters, Elena and Sophia, or "Kitzia" to Mexico. Jan born there, the third son of Poniatowski, dear Elena's brother died in a car accident at age 21. Elena is in Mexico where, provided by the "girls" will learn from these the Castilian town so wonderfully used, particularly in his first novel, published in 1969, to not see Jesus, whose protagonist, Jesusa Palancares, safe have been queen in another life, is a picaresque character unique in Mexican literature, that despite their condition triply disadvantaged (women, indigenous and illiterate), always goes with it. Jesusa Palancares is, obviously, a homage to his beloved princess "girls."
But Elena started in journalism after studying at a religious boarding school in the United States between 1949 and 1952 and have been secretary of a father's business that went bankrupt shortly thereafter. The blue blood does not guarantee the "pope." Blonde girls are not guaranteed happiness as popularly believed in Mexico, and Elena begins to ask the Social Reported (signed his notes with the mysterious pseudonym "Helene"), until Fernando Benítez rescues for "Mexico's culture "News newspaper. Young, pretty, naive and self-taught, and other succulent combination for ravenous wolves, Elena is soon to make a splash its very "Jesus" style, a mixture of ingenuity and guile-mix Princess and "girl" cooking. I am of the idea that Ellen exploiting their innocent appearance that their respondents feel confident and at ease and end all lint. Hand asked to interview the handsome newcomer Carlos Fuentes when he published the Air Is Clear - "Carlos Fuentes you out much to dance and do not know the stepping on giving" -, to Francois Mauriac made him lose his temper, as recorded one of the many volumes interviews across Mexico. A Juan Rulfo, entercado in silence and allergic to the interviews, particularly if they were made by pretty girls, he took all, all, all the soup. To Diego Rivera was unfazed when the girls said guerita breakfast. Her future husband, astronomer Guillermo Haro (1913-1988), whose life inspired the skin of the sky, met him at the time: "He treated me very badly, tells Elena Alonso-Gordon and I went to interview him in the tower Sciences of the UNAM and I remember being told that journalists are the outcasts of all races ... "I bet you, miss he does not have paper and pencil." I dug in my bag like a hen and not really brought neither paper nor pencil. " Miguel Covarrubias, lives and worlds (Era, 2004), rescue hemerographic Antonio Saborit and confirms my suspicions regarding Elenita technique to gain the trust of his interviewees, is invaluable testimony to the cultural journalism in the fifties, a snapshot of youth work Elena: Questions parkas, direct, Pachon, no frills or fanfare .. . French Impressionism to the rawness of his interviewees, insolence that, far from disturbing, yet tender. Like a girl. A Rosa Rolando, the mistress of the artist, describes it as follows: "(...) it was something like his domestic Tanagra, his sculpture of a really, her rose daily, your flower deep carnal. "
in fiction in 1973 with Lilus Kikus. I was supposed to feel overwhelmed by the shadow of his beautiful aunt, the poet-who love Pita takes a merciless portrait in The seven little (Era, 2000) - but Elena has never been competitive, perhaps because it is unique : It just gives you that curious mix of frivolous journalism with humanistic journalism. They are testimonial and journalistic books that reveal his face serious and deeply committed: His ostensible ideological commitment to communism, which earned him among their relatives the nickname "Red Queen" - with which to date communicant, is implicit in Tinisima , fictionalized biography of the Italian photographer Tina Modotti, where even the rich ladies who crowd his literary workshops, the authors have gone far from negligible and Rosa Nissan, Amélie Olaiz Rosamaría Homes, sighed for subversive sexual and Julio Antonio Mella - "The Cubans love their sex. Out to look at women, encourage them with their sex. Nick and I loved college. Took her in his arms, stopped at the corner, the possessed, the sun shone through the windows "- it is this, the erotic novel by Elena Poniatowska, where Julius and Tina, caught at first sight, love up and against the wall.
In 2001 Alfaguara Prize awarded to the skin of the sky bildungsroman, a fiction about her husband, astronomer Guillermo Haro, renamed the Lorenzo de Tena, which recreates a fluctuating Mexico, that of the Buicks, hats and gloves and sellers of electric shocks, the rapidly growing among the twenties to nearly twenty-first century, with a strong male protagonist's love life, angry idealist who takes refuge in the contemplation of the stars. His next novel, worthy of the Rómulo Gallegos 2007 received at the hands of the very same President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, El train goes first (Alfaguara, 2005, Rómulo Gallegos Prize 2007) underscores his passion for men to take up arms and heart of the condominium, who, as in Paseo de la Reforma or skin of the sky, they invariably find their way into a woman ready to conquer also your political ideals and love back to the convention, and against the wall. Pineda Trinidad China is the hero of this novel that recreates almost photographic, motion made to house railroad Mexicans hopes for a genuine political and social change. Trinidad, leader of the masters of the tracks, facing first to the so-called "corrupt leaders" ("The charrismo was a state structure, its black workers), ie collusion with those in charge of squeezing workers, then the president himself Michael German, who ends up feeling overwhelmed with the Pineda stubbornness of China, which seems even willing to be killed if this fellow gets for decent working conditions. What moves the input of these characters is the fact that they work, yes, of necessity, but, above all, passion to the machine and what it attaches to its eventual master, as you noted in the case of own Pineda: "(...) The train was his way of being on earth, was his dead father, his mother taking him out to the station, the cargo tonnage of all his feelings, ceiba higher land. The whistle had long resonated in his heart and had become a sacred animal that left their essence in his childhood dream and rocked him until dawn. The train was his year, his alter ego. "It was not squirrels, or gophers, or rabbit, or lizard, I was a locomotive." (P. 28).
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| Elena, devastated after the death of his best friend, Carlos Monsivais |
Of course, the triumph of Trinidad Pineda on bureaucracy, government and social injustice is not destined to last, not in this country where democracy is a fiction, a utopia. During the next six years will be undertaken dirty smear campaign against him to whom all are hero, and ended up in prison, reviled, accused of being a communist and an ally of the Russians. It is likely that, as he reproached his best friend, Saturnino, Trinidad has exceeded the frankness of their criticism and demands: "In politics you have to maneuver and not judge strongly as you do." (P. 82). Regardless of political intrigue, the first train passes also addresses this sort of incestuous passion, which is more ideological identification of sex, between Trinidad and niece Barbara, which reads fanatically Simone De Beauvoir, wears his hair short and wear pants. Trinidad identify more with this girl who seems willing to die for their cause, as many students (in this novel raises the symbolic start of the alliance between the railroad and the union of the university), who with his faithful but traditional tolerant wife and mother of his children. "Dude ... Do not want to be a poor copy of my aunts, they themselves are already blurred copies of themselves, copies of copies of what would ever want to be (...) I am my own wife. Simone de Beauvoir also stood up against it that anatomy is destiny. "(Pp. 95 and 96) Love will teach the hero gradient, which Mexican saints in the heaps are counted, more than ever expected. For example, "(...) the certainty that consciousness arises from the faith, but doubt." (P. 96).
Reading this magnificent novel that, like all of Elena, no fanfare, oozes freshness and agility in their dialogues in journalism, unless one can not miss this picturesque houses whose land Buenavista station for now a mega library that was some news and the subject of a political campaign, and now nobody cares. Elenita, like Jesus, like Trinidad, and Mella, as Tinisima ... as Leonora, the heroine of his most recent and exciting novel, my favorite, I must confess, and so many characters that never crossed his arms and do not hesitate to take a rifle, a banner or a book, if that manage to change a little the world, not usually remain silent. I could not stop being part of one of the most significant events in the recent history of Mexico: the "criminal" making reform, the nation's busiest street and the busiest in the world, thousands of disgruntled citizens so , clearly, was an electoral fraud. An act that wealthy newspaper circulating out there qualify as "terrorism" deaf and dumb, but the hundreds, thousands of innocents who die every day in so-called "crossfire" between the military and members of organized crime. Elenita, however no longer be the girl, trembling with indignation dodged bullets in Tlatelolco, nor the large woman who dug through the rubble that the earthquake of 85 left in its wake, stood for several days with the crowd demanding clarity electoral process by other troubled that in some ways, led the nightmare that Mexico is today. Confesses that he had not gotten involved if the affected candidate, representing the left where the red princess had fought all his life convinced, do not search your house personally to Chimalistac delegate the responsibility of becoming the spokeswoman for the indignation of the people mocked. She tells it in his splendid review Dawn in the Zocalo, in the section entitled precisely "knocking on my door:" All I know is that yes, that is the great tragedy of my life. "
But while at first, Elenita felt morally obliged to make up for the peaceful revolt that not ceased to be cultural and rebellion, insurrection, insurgency ... ... words almost taboo for Mexican and enthusiastically joined the popular demand to make a recount (which has been effective in many other countries where the slightest suspicion of error is sufficient to repeat the whole process), because she was convinced, and very indignant at the overwhelming evidence of electoral fraud in favor of the right candidate. Recognizes, however, have been naive ... really naive, I mean, by accepting to film a TV spot that placed her in the eye of the hurricane: "(...) I shot another spot very naive same day we spoke (López Obrador and it.) It asked the PAN not lie or slander to say that Andres Manuel was a danger to Mexico. Struck Tere's publicist sent a car for me and a very nice gentleman, the driver and I went Rascuache a study near my home. A sweet girl hands brushed me and I had to repeat it once the text written about my book Scribe. Aired April 7, 2006 (by the way, I never sent as promised) and from then on I played a holy week of launches in the side, sponge, vinegar and a crown of thorns. "You asked for it, which gets scorched leaves the kitchen," said Rossana Fuentes. "
favor of Elenita I can say that hardly a good person like her (I know it's a good person, as he has the people to come close to it and received love, only love) could hardly be expected to be faced characters as sinister, wicked and misogynist who were able to convince through defamatory campaigns that Dona Elena was the sweet grandmother whose skirts are sheltering the candidate beaten. "(...) A woman in the literary prestigious but politically very naive," say Luis Martinez, although the prominent writer Fernando del Paso defended: "The PAN, as a political party, owes an apology, because he is a citizen Mexican is not committing a crime, is exercising its right as a citizen to support a candidate she believes in, regardless of what it is. "The people of Mexico broke in two, not only the political (in those days there were hundreds of street brawls between "Calderón" and "lopezobradoristas") but in those who were in favor and against the collaboration of Elena Poniatowska with the Left. The midnight phone insults became an everyday thing, like the spontaneous cheers and hugs your way. His own sister would claim him angrily Kitzia their involvement in this case that had triggered extreme passions in people, "Do you think Joan of Arc or you hit her in the head? You are fully pelican, have never been in reality but far less. AMLO is a byproduct that will lead the country disaster and you stuck there. Jump, mana, jump, those people do not deserve you, skip. "And later he would insist his very Jesus' brothers:" (...) Do not you realize that you do horrible damage to your children and mine also ? Santiago was a year doing a project on a house for Roberto Hernandez and Santiago is only canceled and your nephew. What will happen to your children? How much longer are you going to follow in destitution? "It is true, accept Elenita: My family, my children, except Well that is in the UAM-my daughter-Puebla, suffer the consequences of my support for AMLO." (P. 200).
might say that it is time that Elenita became indifferent as to some and to others. Dawn in the Zocalo includes not only the chronicle of those fifty days of confrontation that threatened to degenerate into civil strife, but his tired face of what suddenly emerged as a lost cause and his desire to retire to his home to rest, to attend another church other than the seven, officiated by López Obrador (Elenita recognizes a red very Catholic), but not the only one whose forces dwindle. The movement itself is going extinct under the influence of the criminal hearing of the institutions responsible for enforcing democracy in Mexico. The mood of the rebels could be compared with the 68 students who came to express their displeasure against the government and ended up shot dead or missing. In this case it is not shot anyone or disappeared, we used a worse strategy: making fun of the protesters, display to the public as renegades and bad losers. Elenita, who to date has been receiving calls where the call "fucking old bitch," published this chronicle in a very timely, not opportunistic (within one year of the events described in the book), which establishes, in figures and impressions gathered at first hand, and the heat of battle, the demands of the people scammed, the number of polls raped the number of votes mysteriously disappeared, the electioneering tricks to convince the Mexicans of the dangers of leftist candidate, threats and insults, alliances between former members of the PRI and the new ruling party and physical attacks and moral against the strikers ... but also, in a splendid example of objectivity and self-criticism of the mistakes made by herself, for their candidate and strategists of the movement which, although unsuccessful, has come to occupy an honored place in Mexico's history: "Just around the corner, where I see them, presence safe, friendly, reliable. I trust them. I need them, I need my country. Maybe because I was not born here need more from him than anyone. These days I live and feel you have to live or we all lived like that ... "(p. 237)
The latest feat, literature on this occasion, the Red Queen, is the Prize Biblioteca Breve 2011 with what I consider the best of his novels, Leonora, where journalist after all, tells the story of a real character, however, looks like something out of a terrifyingly beautiful story: the English painter living in Mexico , Leonora Carrington, who still lives, is about 100 years old, and with whom Helena has more than one thing in common. The fact that the artist is still alive and surrounded by a large family, think before you start reading the novel, would be a self-censorship to the novelist-biographer, and yet the story flows with flows freely and without veils tender details such as overwhelming passion Leonora youth who lived with the painter Max Ernst, or passing through the asylum in Salamanca itself tells Leonora tinged fairy tale in his book Memoirs of broken down ... or marriage to the writer and journalist Renato Leduc , who brought her to Mexico to get her out of a Europe plunged into World War II. Of course, Elena exposes details not included in the story of Leonora, and that the painter must have revealed itself (remember that Elena is an expert in getting all the soup). Elena Poniatowska no better than to romanticize the incredible story of a woman completely alien to this world, a woman who spoke the language of horses and considers herself a runaway horse.
The biggest challenge we had this story, and I think that Elena the pound with enough decorum, was to recreate the world of the Surrealists, which Leonora remained immersed for several years and affect the rest of his life. Leonora was not enough to tell it: obvious that Ellen was immersed in extensive research allowed him to "translate", so to speak Somehow, the complex personalities of Max Ernst, André Breton, Paul Eluard ... the patron Edward James and Peggy Guggenheim, even more bizarre that his proteges, among others. But undoubtedly the most difficult to decipher was the very Leonora, the irreverent British established a Mighty, not excluding him his two sons, Gabriel and Paul, but her husband, the kindly-but-conventional Chiki: "(...) The art tradition is confined to a caged animal. Imprison a creature is to take away his greatness. There is little room for fantasy in the cage of traditional art. Inhibitions, so firmly established, still maintain power, no matter how many permits were given to men themselves. "(Seix Barral, Barcelona, \u200b\u200b2011, p.86)
Finally, between Elena and the painter in particular, because a painter Leonora is not like the others, the same way that Helena is not only a writer, journalist but above all there is a great similarity: the same way as literary characters eventually become autonomous and ignore the authority of its creator, the amazing pictorial characters of Leonora Carrington, "is up fabric alone "(p. 358)
Leonora, which could also advise the overwhelmed Elena not only knows how to say yes, like Remedios Varo, your best friend: "Get rid of the stereotyped expression, free yourself from the beliefs of all, free yourself from the usual places, free yourself of the visits, free yourself from those who consider themselves visionaries, I'd say the two hemispheres of my brain." (p. 405 .)
Chécate Braid dedicated to Leonora Carrington
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