Women: Recados

by Gabriela Mistral (Editor), Jacqueline C. Nanfito (Editor), Isabel Allende (Editor)

Exquisite word portraits of women by one of the past century's greatest women writers. These recados —brief, descriptive essays—paint vivid pictures of some of the most extraordinary women of Mistral's generation—and give us insights into Mistral herself. In these pieces, Mistral infuses the traditionally objective essay form with the intimate and subjective, thereby creating an alternate space for women intellectuals in the public sphere. Her subjects range from her own beloved mother to well-known writers such as Victoria Ocampo and Emily Brontë, artists such as Chilean sculptor Laura Rodig and dancer Isadora Duncan, and to topics including feminism, women and politics, and women and education. Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957) is the only woman from Latin America to win the Nobel Prize. A native of Chile, she spent the final years of her life in the United States.

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2001

About the author

Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga (pseudonym: Gabriela Mistral), a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945 "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world." Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Indian and European influences.

Reviews

[Ariel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was extremely excited to read this collection of essays on important contemporary female figures and feminist topics by Chilean Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral. Reading it, I have no doubt her battles were hard-fought and that her feminism was progressive for its time (1920s-50s), however this is not my feminism. Mistral waxes poetic about the rigorous religious self-denial of female Christian saints and heaps copious praise on the stalwart & selfless Latin American mother. And yet I don't feel that the rights of women should be contingent on their virtuous martyrdom or their suffering motherhood. I know that there is a lot more to Mistral than that, but her tendency to return to and belabor these two classic trope-characters left a bad taste in my mouth.

Her feminism felt, at times, judgmental, as if, even as she wanted to expand the rights of women she only wanted to do so to a degree she herself had determined appropriate- pigeonholing women's rights to only what she envisioned women should want or be. For example she writes passionately about women's right to equal compensation with men (quite admirable)... but also argues that women should limit themselves to suitably feminine professions like schoolteachers and dressmakers. Her conclusion is that women trying to break into inappropriately masculine professions are the true reason so little progress has been made for women's professional parity in general... It's women's fault, not, say, entrenched patriarchy. I'm not sure that I can accept this viewpoint, even given the era it was made in.

It is undoubtable that Mistral wanted and expected more for her fellow women than many of her male contemporaries did, but I can't help feel that the limitations she herself set on what women could and should be, tarnish the appeal of her writing to a modern reader.

[Steve P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into many women's lives, some not so much.

Her prose is amazing, very lyrical, very deep. Most of the essays were pleasures to read aloud.