This America Of Ours: The Letters Of Gabriela Mistral And Victoria Ocampo Project Muse Upcc Books

for several weeks' assistance with typing and background research. To Theresa May, editor in chief of the University of Texas Press, we convey our special thanks for encouraging this project and understanding the various delays entailed in its development. We are also grateful to Carolyn Wylie and Nancy Warrington for their editorial expertise in the final stages of the writing process. We owe a special debt to Victoria Ocampo for her foresight in preserving the letters sent to her by Mistral, beginning in , before either woman was internationally famous. The extant letters were collected by Fundación SUR and subsequently microfilmed. Those attempting to use the microfilm need to be forewarned that the collection is very loosely, and in many places inaccurately, labeled with regard to places and dates. The Mistral manuscripts, now part of the Victoria Ocampo Papers at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, are published by permission. Ocampo' s letters to Mistral are found in the Library of Congress in the Gabriela Mistral Papers (on microfilm), with copies also in the Columbus Memorial Library of the Organization of American States (OAS). Two additional photocopies of Ocampo letters (V. and V.) are in the collection of Doris Meyer. We are indebted to Fundación SUR, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for permission to publish the correspondence and other pieces by Ocampo. This has been an exhilarating literary and personal experience for both of us. Working together and learning more about two exceptionally interesting women and the intricacies of their friendship has brought us great satisfaction. We hope other scholars will similarly seek out women' s correspondence in Latin America and bring it to light. Epistolary literature is a vital but much neglected source of information and insight into the lives of women, particularly where access to public discourse has been subject to gender restrictions. Gabriela Mistral and Victoria Ocampo were freer than most Latin American women, but they still used the privacy of their letters to treasure their relatedness to one another, to authorize their own American identities, and to construct a corresponding space in which to nurture a better future for their America. PREFACE ix  . Gabriela Mistral' s published correspondence (listed in our bibliography) includes exchanges with Amado Nervo (ed. Loveluck), Rubén Darío (Antología mayor: Cartas), Alfonso Reyes (Tan de usted), Joaquín García Monge (GM y Joaquín García Monge), Pedro Prado (En batalla de sencillez), Eduardo Barrios (Epistolario), Eugenio Labarca (Antología major: Cartas), Teresa de la Parra and Lydia Cabrera (Cartas a Lydia Cabrera), Manuel Magallanes Moure (Cartas de amor), and the Errázuriz Echenique and Tomic Errázuriz families (Vuestra Gabriela). Many of GM' s earliest publications take the form of meditative epistolary prose, and much of her verse names historical recipients in dedications and in titles. An overview of unpublished correspondence received by GM appears in the Index to GM Papers on Microfilm. Victoria Ocampo sustained epistolary relationships with many individuals throughout her life, beginning with her letters to Delfina Bunge, from  to , which expressed her antipathy to traditional norms of female behavior in Argentina and her longing for intellectual fulfillment. Among her correspondents during her twenties and thirties, the years when she was finding her own voice and expression, were Gabriela Mistral and Victoria Ocampo were the two most influential and respected women writers of twentieth-century Latin America. Mistral, a plain, self-educated Chilean woman of the mountains who was a poet, journalist, and educator, became Latin America's first Nobel Laureate in 1945. Ocampo, a stunning Argentine woman of wealth, wrote hundreds of essays and founded the first-rate literary journal Sur. Though of very different backgrounds, their deep commitment to what they felt was "their" America forged a unique intellectual and emotional bond between them. This collection of the previously unpublished correspondence between Mistral and Ocampo reveals the private side of two very public women. In these letters (as well as in essays that are included in an appendix), we see what Mistral and Ocampo thought about each other and about the intellectual and political atmosphere of their time (including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the dictatorships of Latin America) and particularly how they negotiated the complex issues of identity, nationality, and gender within their wide-ranging cultural connections to both the Americas and Europe. In addition, because neither author's complete correspondence with another woman writer has been published before, this volume will be of interest to students of the epistolary tradition, a field that is just beginning to receive its due attention in Latin America. 2005 — Best Book Translation Prize – New England Council of Latin American Studies Gabriela Mistral and Victoria Ocampo were the two most influential and respected women writers of twentieth-century Latin America. Mistral, a plain, self-educated Chilean woman of the mountains who was a poet, journalist, and educator, became Latin America's first Nobel Laureate in 1945. Ocampo, a stunning Argentine woman of wealth, wrote hundreds of essays and founded the first-rate literary journal Sur. Though of very different backgrounds, their deep commitment to what they felt was "their" America forged a unique intellectual and emotional bond between them. This collection of the previously unpublished correspondence between Mistral and Ocampo reveals the private side of two very public women. In these letters (as well as in essays that are included in an appendix), we see what Mistral and Ocampo thought about each other and about the intellectual and political atmosphere of their time (including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the dictatorships of Latin America) and particularly how they negotiated the complex issues of identity, nationality, and gender within their wide-ranging cultural connections to both the Americas and Europe. Letters 1926-1939 -- Letters 1940-1952 -- Letters 1953-1956 -- Message To Victoria Ocampo In Argentina / By Gabriela Mistral -- Victoria Ocampo / By Gabriela Mistral -- About Gabriela / By Victoria Ocampo And Roger Caillois -- And Lucila Who Spoke Like A River / By Victoria Ocampo -- Gabriela Mistral In Her Letters / By Victoria Ocampo -- Victoria Ocampo On Her Friendship With Gabriela Mistral. Edited And Translated By Elizabeth Horan And Doris Meyer. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 339-347) And Index.