Description
Ángeles Mastretta is a writer. There is no other vocation she likes better. However, she can also be an unconditional listener, an insufferable singer, an obstinate conversationalist. She does her work without the necessary assiduity, but when she wants to she can immerse herself in what she loves.
She was born and lives in México. Her books: Arráncame la vida (Tear This Heart Out), Mujeres de ojos grandes (Women with Big Eyes), Mal de amores (Lovesick), Puerto Libre (Free Port), El mundo iluminado (The Illuminated World), El cielo de los leones (The Sky of the Lions]), Ninguna eternidad como la mía (No Eternity Like Mine), Maridos (Husbands) y La emoción de las cosas (The Emotion of Things). They’ve been translated into twenty languages.
Ángeles Mastretta was born on October 9, 1949, in Puebla, México, where she lived until she was sixteen. She moved to México City after the death of her father Carlos Mastretta.
She studied journalism at UNAM´s Political and Social Sciences School and wrote for the evening paper Ovaciones. In 1974, she was awarded a scholarship by the Centro Mexicano de Escritores (Mexican Center for Writers) to participate in a literary workshop alongside writers such as Juan Rulfo and Salvador Elizondo. She was the director of the Chopo Museum and of the Cultural Dissemination Program at ENEP (National Higher Education School) in Acatlán.
Mastretta is a member of the Editorial Board of NEXOS magazine. Her husband, the writer Héctor Aguilar Camín, was its director between 1983 and 1995. She writes frequently for Die Welt and El País.
In 1985, she published her first novel, Arráncame la vida (Tear This Heart Out). It received the Premio Mazatlán (Mazatlán Prize) and had unexpected success. In 1997, she received the Rómulo Gallegos prize for Mal de amores (Lovesick), her second novel.
In her work she adopts a liberated view of an oppressed woman that gains control of her destiny. Due to her work, this famous writer has founded and organized groups such as the Unión de Mujeres Antimachistas (Anti-machismo Women´s Union), in México City.
At 63, the international recognition that Ángeles Mastretta enjoys has allowed her to be juror at important literary awards and her work to be translated to other languages such as Chinese, and has made her a key author in today’s México, which she refers to from a passionate and complex feminine universe. Proof of it is found in a fragment from her short novel, Ninguna eternidad como la mía (No Eternity Like Mine), in which she commits to “live with intensity and joy, to not be defeated by the abysms of love, or by fear that might befall me from it, or by forgetfulness, not even by the torment of an unrequited passion.
“I’m committed to remember, to recognize my mistakes, to bless my outbursts. I’m committed to forgive all abandonment, to not neglect anything that moves me, dazzels me, breaks me, cheers me.
“I promise long life, vast patience, long stories. I will limit nothing that has to happen to me, not the sorrow or the ecstasy, so that when I’m old I’ll have, as a delicacy, the detailed story of my days,” as seen in a blog with important phrases and quotations from her work
According to a biography made available at ensayistas.org, she went on to write for newspapers and magazines such as Excélsior, Unomásuno, La Jornada and Proceso.
Her journalism career began with a column “Del absurdo cotidiano” (Everyday absurdity) in the evening newspaper Ovaciones.”
In 1978, she published a poetry collection titled La pájara pinta (The Colorful Bird), and directed the Chopo Museum until 1982. According to Wikipedia, that same year, Mastretta becomes part of the Editorial Board of the feminist magazine FEM.
In 1985, she wrote her first novel Arráncame la vida (Tear This Heart Out), winner of the Mazatlán Prize, which was translated into Italian, English, German, French, and Dutch. Her book brought her fame and international prestige.
In 1997, Mastretta received the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for her novel and fourth book, Mal de amores (Lovesick) (1996). It was the first time in its history that the prize was awarded to a woman.
Experts of her work emphasize that the literary work of Mastretta highlights the Mexican feminist thought of the 70s and 80s. Mastretta is known for her social commitment to the problems of the Mexican woman, she presents and contextualizes them, through an authentic and tangible experience, in her narrative.
