Maria Mercedes Carranza (1945-2003) was a Colombian writer, poet, short story writer and journalist, who also stood out for her literary criticism and for promoting culture. His work was part of the Disenchanted Generation, a trend characterized by denouncing the policies of the time and the mistreatment of students and peasants..
Carranza's literature stood out for being deep and thoughtful. The author gave her writings a certain philosophical character and some questions about life. In his work, themes related to life, the end of existence, love, disappointment and women were common..
The literary work of this writer was not extensive and was mostly oriented to poetry. The most prominent titles were: I am afraid, Hello, loneliness; Pods, Ways of heartbreak Y The song of the flies. María Mercedes Carranza had an important participation in the printed media of Colombia.
Article index
María Mercedes was born on May 24, 1945 in Bogotá, and came from a cultured family with a good socioeconomic position. His father was the writer and poet Eduardo Carranza Fernández and his mother was named Rosa Coronado. He had two brothers, Ramiro and Juan Carranza Coronado.
Carranza lived his first six years of life in his native Colombia and in 1951 he went to live in Spain with his family, since his father obtained the position of cultural ambassador. There he studied elementary school, began to interact with literature and grew up listening to the stories of his great-aunt, the writer Elisa Mújica..
At the age of thirteen, he returned to Colombia to continue his secondary and high school education. It is necessary to note that Carranza's adaptation process was not easy. Then he went to Madrid to study philosophy and letters, but completed his university degree at the Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá..
María Mercedes Carranza entered the world of work and literature in her early youth. In 1965 he started working at the newspaper The century as coordinator of the literary content page "Vanguardia". The publication was a window for new writers to expose their texts and achieve recognition.
Carranza met journalist and lawyer Fernando Garavito in the mid-1960s and they began a love affair. At the beginning of the seventies they got married, but only for civil matters, that is how María Mercedes broke with the family norm of religious marriage. The couple had a daughter whom they named Melibea.
The professional life of María Mercedes Carranza developed notably. Together with her husband Fernando, in 1975, she was the director of the magazine. Estravagario from the newspaper The village From Cali. Then he went on to work on the post New Frontier in charge of the writing department.
The literary vein of this intellectual led her to publish her poetic works. This is how in 1983 he unveiled I'm afraid and four years later it came to light Hi loneliness. Both works were expressive and intense and their contents were based on reflections on the existence.
Carranza dedicated her life to promoting Colombian culture, so she carried out different activities to reach a wide audience. One of her greatest achievements as a cultural activist was her participation in the creation of the Silva Poetry House in 1986. There she served as director until the end of her days and organized literary workshops.
The writer knew how to effectively and vigorously develop her work as a journalist, cultural promoter and writer. Between 1988 and 1991 he published Poems, anthology; Personal Anthology, Poetic Anthology Y Complete work. It was in the early nineties when she participated in the National Constituent Assembly after being elected by the M-19 Democratic Alliance.
The author always remained consistent in her literary vocation. Among his latest publications were: Ways of heartbreak, love and heartbreak Y The song of the flies. Carranza and his family suffered the kidnapping of their brother Ramiro by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
From that tragic event, the physical, psychological and emotional health of the writer began to deteriorate. She fell into a deep depression and consequently had to be medicated. On July 11, 2003, María Mercedes Carranza committed suicide after ingesting an overdose of antidepressants..
Carranza's literary style was characterized by the use of a cultured, intense and lively language. Her poems were full of expressiveness and philosophical content, which led the reader and the poet herself to reflect and ask questions about life, the end of existence, love and loneliness..
The ironic tone was a predominant feature in his works, a nuance for which he hooked many of his readers.
- Vaina and other poems (1972).
- I'm afraid (1983).
- Hi loneliness (1987).
- Pods, anthology (1987).
- Poems, anthology (1988).
- Personal anthology (1989).
- Poetic anthology (1990).
- Complete work (1991).
- Ways of heartbreak (1993).
- Love and heartbreak (1994).
- Of love and heartbreak and other poems (nineteen ninety five).
- The song of the flies (1998).
- Maria Mercedes Carranza (1999).
- In memoriam María Mercedes Carranza 1945-2003 (posthumous edition, 2003).
- The homeland and other ruins (posthumous edition, 2004).
- Complete poetry and five unpublished poems (posthumous edition, 2004).
- Complete poetry (posthumous edition, 2010).
- New Colombian poetry (1972).
- Seven young storytellers (1972).
- Estravagario (1976).
- Anthology of Colombian children's poetry (1982).
- Carranza by Carranza (1985).
It was the first work she published and in it she left the poetic mark that accompanied her throughout her literary career. The author portrayed her perception of life and the country, using precise, thoughtful language and added sarcasm and sometimes pessimism to the verses..
This work was the third published by Carranza. Through the poems in this book, he invited readers to immerse themselves in a journey where good and bad had a place. With his customary cultured language, precise and concise, he penetrated the depths of loneliness, absence, failure and love..
It was one of the best-known publications of María Mercedes Carranza, in which she used a language devoid of rhetoric and a lot of expressiveness. As the title indicates, the verses were related to the arrival of love and the fleetingness with which it could vanish. There were experiential features.
It was considered one of the most profound and philosophical works of the Colombian writer. The fundamental theme was the end of life, which he developed through comparisons, questions and metaphors. The writings were characterized by being brief and by the use of symbols such as wind, water, earth and loneliness..
Look at me: fear dwells in me.
After calm eyes, in this body that loves:
the fear.
The fear of dawn because inevitable
the sun will rise and I have to see it,
when it gets dark because it may not leave tomorrow.
I keep an eye on the mysterious noises in this house
that collapses, and the ghosts,
the shadows surround me and
I'm afraid.
I try to sleep with the light on
and I do how I can with spears,
armor, illusions.
... Nothing calms me down or calms me down:
neither this useless word, nor this passion of love,
nor the mirror where I already see my dead face.
Hear me well, I say it out loud:
I'm afraid".
"One day I will write my memoirs,
Who is disrespectful does not?
And there will be everything.
The nail polish will be scrambled
with Pavese and Pavese
with needles and a
than another market account ...
Where you have to score the most
important I will remember a lunch
anyone arriving at
heart of an artichoke,
sheet by sheet.
And rest,
I will fill the missing pages
with that memory that awaits me between candles,
many flowers and rest in peace ".
"... As if nothing, people come and go
through the ruined rooms,
they make love, they dance, they write letters.
Often they whistle bullets or is it maybe the wind
that whistles through the broken ceiling.
In this house the living sleep with the dead,
they imitate their customs, they repeat their gestures
And when they sing, they sing their failures.
Everything is ruin in this house,
the embrace and the music are ruined,
fate, every morning, laughter is ruins;
the tears, the silence, the dreams.
Windows show destroyed landscapes,
meat and ash blend in the faces,
in the mouths the words are stirred with fear.
In this house we are all buried alive ".
"Now in the hour of heartbreak
and without the pink lightness that desire gives.
His steps and gestures float.
The sleepwalking smiles, almost no mouth,
those words that were not possible.
The questions that only buzzed like flies
and his eyes, a cold piece of blue meat ...
Dreams, always dreams.
How dirty is the light of this hour,
how cloudy the memory of the little that remains
and how petty the imminent oblivion! ".
"By traitor I decided today
Tuesday, June 24,
murder some words.
Friendship is doomed
to the stake, for heretic;
the gallows is convenient
to love for illegible;
the vile club would not be bad,
for apostate, for solidarity;
the guillotine like lightning,
must strike brotherhood;
freedom will die
slowly and painfully ...
Esperanza has already died;
faith will suffer the gas chamber ...
I will mercilessly shoot civilization
for its barbarism; hemlock will drink happiness ... ".
"When I stop to contemplate
his status and I look at his face
dirty, eighty,
I think word that
it is time that I do not lose
plus the one who has lost so much.
If it is true that someone
said speak up and you became a liar,
whore, stubborn, it's time
to remove her makeup
and start naming ... ".
"Nobody looks anyone in the face,
from north to south mistrust, suspicion
between smiles and careful courtesies.
Turbid the air and fear
in all the hallways and elevators, in the beds.
A lazy rain falls
like a deluge: city of the world
who will not know joy.
Soft smells that memories seem
after so many years that they are in the air.
Half-done city, always about to look like something
like a girl starting to menstruate,
precarious, without any beauty.
19th century patios with geraniums
where old ladies still serve chocolate;
tenant patios
in which grime and pain live burned ... ".
- "The word" I "remains, for that one, sad, for her atrocious loneliness, I decree the worst of sorrows: she will live with me until the end".
- “The fable of my childhood is woven with its legends and stories; with her I discovered the power of the word ”. (Affirmation of the poet in relation to her maternal grandmother Elisa Mujica).
- "Time passes, a kiss is nothing more than a kiss".
- "... To die as the great die: for a dream that only they dare to dream ...".
- "... And my steps will always be within the labyrinth traced by yours".
- "How dirty is the light of this hour, how cloudy the memory of what little remains and how petty the imminent oblivion!".
- “They met beyond the skin, for a moment the world was exact and kind, and life was something more than a desolate story. Then and before and now and forever. It was all a game of enemy mirrors ".
- "In the tight darkness of his heart, where everything arrives already without skin, voice, or date, he decides to play at being his own hero ...".
- “When I came back I was still playing with dolls and I didn't know how babies were born. I had left Spain and my childhood, and I felt a terrible cultural nostalgia that I faced with the decision to belong to Colombia ".
- "This house with thick colonial walls and a courtyard of azaleas dating back to the 19th century has collapsed for several centuries ...".
Yet No Comments