Dulce Chacón (3 June 1954 – 3 December 2003) was a Spanish poet, novelist and playwright.

Biography

Born into a traditional family in the

Extremadura Extremadura (; ext, Estremaúra; pt, Estremadura; Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is an autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central-western part of the Iberian Peninsula, it ...

region of Spain, her family moved to

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

upon her father's death, when she was 12 years old. In spite of growing up in a conservative family, Dulce Chacón soon became a leftist, due to the victims caused by the Spanish dictatorship. Her motto towards this issue was “neither bitterness nor oblivion”. Chacón started writing at an early age even though she did not publish until 1992 when her first book of poetry, ''Querrán ponerle nombre'', appeared. Two more books of poetry then followed: ''Las palabras de la piedra'' and ''Contra el desprestigio de la altura'', in 1993 and 1995 respectively. The latter won her the Ciudad de Irún Prize. In 1996 she published her first novel, ''Algún amor que no mate'', which is about a woman abused by her husband.

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which hec ...

described it as “harsh but necessary”. Consequently, she involved herself in various progressive social and political activities. Her novel '' La voz dormida'' (''The sleeping voice''), which gathers testimonies of women who took part in the republican side during the Spanish Civil War, attracted widespread acclaim. In regards to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Chacón joined a cultural movement against war. There she went along to read aloud, alongside Nobel prize winner

, the anti-war manifesto at the 15 March 2003 mass demonstration in Madrid against the war. She was also a member of an association for women against gender-based violence. Her husband, Miguel Ángel Alcántara, would define her as a determined, leftist, agnostic woman, whose best weapons were words and writing. She died in Madrid on 3 December 2003, only one month after learning she had pancreatic cancer that had spread to her liver.

Awards and recognition

* Premio de Poesía Ciudad de Irún, for ''Contra el desprestigio de la altura'', 1995 * XXIV Premio Azorín, for ''Cielos de barro'', 2000 * Premio Libro del Año 2002, for ''La voz Dormida'

Works

Poetry

*''Querrán ponerle nombre'' (1992) *''Las palabras de la piedra'' (1993) *''Contra el desprestigio de la altura'' (1995) *''Matar al ángel'' (1999) *''Cuatro gotas'' (2003)

Novels

* ''Algún amor que no mate'' (1996) * ''Blanca vuela mañana'' * ''Háblame, musa, de aquel varón'' (1998) * ''Cielos de barro'' (2000) * ''La voz dormida'' (2002)

Theatre

* ''Algún amor que no mate'' * ''Segunda mano'' 1998

Short stories

*"Te querré hasta la muerte" 2003, pp. 61–64.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chacon, Dulce 1954 births 2003 deaths People from Zafra Writers from Extremadura Identical twins Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Spain Spanish twins Spanish women poets Spanish women novelists Spanish women dramatists and playwrights Spanish women short story writers Spanish short story writers 20th-century Spanish poets 20th-century Spanish novelists 20th-century Spanish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Spanish women writers 20th-century short story writers