Juana de Ibarbourou
Juana de Ibarbourou was a prominent Uruguayan poet and writer, born in Melo, Uruguay, around 1895. She came from a farming background, as her father had emigrated from Spain. After moving to Rocha with her mother during her childhood, she began her education and was deeply influenced by the civil strife in Uruguay. Ibarbourou married Captain Lucas Ibarbourou at eighteen, and they had one son, Julio César. She moved to Montevideo in 1918, where she dedicated herself to writing, gaining recognition with her first poetry collection, *Las lenguas de diamante*, published in 1919. Her works often explored themes of nature, religion, and love, characterized by a passionate voice that was notable for a woman of her time.
In 1929, she was honored as Juana de América by the Uruguayan government, and her international reputation grew, leading to accolades from several countries, including a Universal Order for Human Merit in 1930. Throughout her life, Ibarbourou faced personal losses, including the death of her husband and mother, which deeply influenced her later work. She became the first female member of the Uruguayan Academy of Letters and held cultural ambassador roles in various countries. Juana de Ibarbourou passed away in 1979 and was the first woman to receive a state funeral in Uruguay, with her legacy celebrated through numerous institutions named in her honor.
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Juana de Ibarbourou
Poet
- Born: 1895
- Birthplace: Melo, Uruguay
- Died: 1979
- Place of death: Montevideo, Uruguay
Biography
Juana de Ibarbourou was born in Melo, Uruguay, possibly in 1895. Her father, Vicente Fernández, was a farmer who had emigrated from Spain. As a child, Ibarbourou and her mother moved to the city of Rocha, where she started her schooling and found herself moved by Uruguay’s civil war. Her earliest writings give voice to her patriotic emotions. When she was eighteen, she married a military man, Captain Lucas Ibarbourou. The couple had one child, Julio César.
In 1918, she and her husband settled in Montevideo, Uruguay, where Ibarbourou began to devote herself seriously to her writing, although she had published poems sporadically in newspapers from the age of sixteen. Her first book of poems, Las lenguas de diamante, was published in 1919. The poems dealt with nature and religion as well as love, a topic she addressed in the frankly passionate voice which marks her poetry and sets it apart as unusual for a Latin American woman of the period. In 1925, some of her work was selected for a literature textbook, an event which initiated Ibarbourou’s continuing interest in children’s education.
In 1929, the Uruguayan government named her Juana de América to celebrate her popularity as a female writer. In 1930, she was awarded the Universal Order for Human Merit in Geneva, Switzerland, in recognition of her growing international reputation, and in the next years she was similarly recognized by Peru, Bolivia, and Belgium. During these years, Ibarbourou also began to write religious prose in the form of prayers and retellings of Bible stories while continuing to write stories for children.
The next years were a time of loss for the writer. Her husband died in 1942; in 1947, she had to move from a house she loved to one which offered little to inspire her art; in 1949, her mother died. Her sense of loss permeated her next works, especially the poetry collection Pérdida. By the mid-1950’s, Ibarbourou had been named to the Uruguayan Academy of Letters, its first woman member. She also was appointed a cultural attaché to Colombia and later held a similar post in the Dominican Republic. These appointments, along with continued honors from her country, furthered her fame and occasioned visits from international figures, including s the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca and Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda (Ibarbourou’s memoirs note her falling out with the latter two writers). Ibarbourou died in 1979 and was the first woman to receive a state funeral in Uruguay. Her name is memorialized in many Uruguayan institutions.