Yolanda Oreamuno Unger (8 April 1916 – 8 July 1956) was a

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

n writer. Her most acclaimed novel is ''La Ruta de su Evasión'' (1948). Her 40 years of life were markedly divided into two phases: the first 20 years, filled with youth, beauty and happiness, contrasted sharply with the following years of tragedy, loneliness and sickness.

Early life

Yolanda Oreamuno was the only child of Carlos Oreamuno Pacheco and Margarita Unger Salazar. Her father died before her first birthday, so she was mainly raised by her maternal grandmother, Eudoxia Salazar Salazar, whose husband Unger was deceased by then.''Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book'', Diane E. Marting (Editor), Greenwood Press, 1990

/ref> She obtained her secondary education in the Colegio Superior de Señoritas. She then studied bookkeeping and worked at the Costa Rican Post Office headquarters. At the age of 20 she published her first two stories, "La lagartija de la panza blanca" and "Para Revenar, no para Max Jiménez".

Marriage and adult life

She was working in the

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

an embassy when she met the diplomat Jorge Molina Wood. They were married, and moved to that country. She recounted life during that time in her stories ''La mareas vuelven de noche'' and ''Don Junvencio'' (which remained unpublished until 1971). Her time in Chile was prolific; her stories appeared in ''

Repertorio Americano ''Repertorio Americano'' was a cultural magazine published in San José, Costa Rica by Joaquín García Monge, on and off between 1919 and 1958. It was a significant forum of discussion for the Latin America Latin America is the cultural ...

'', including ''40º sobre cero'', ''18 de setiembre'', ''Misa de ocho'', ''Vela urbana'', ''El espíritu de mi tierra'', '' Insomnio'' and ''El negro, sentido de la alegría''. Their marriage, however, fell apart in 1936; her husband, weakened by an incurable disease, committed suicide. She returned to Costa Rica at the end of 1936. In 1937 she married a lawyer, Óscar Barahona Streber, who was involved with the Costa Rican communist movement. They both participated in opposition activities. Their son, Sergio Barahona Oreamuno, was born 21 September 1942. Their marriage did not last; after their divorce, her ex-husband migrated to Guatemala. She wrote her first novel, ''Por tierra firme'', in 1938. In 1940 she submitted it to a writing contest, winning a three-way first prize. However, she declined to share the honor with the others, and decided against sending the manuscript for publication; eventually the manuscript was lost. Tumba de Yolanda Oreamuno

Oreamuno moved to Mexico, then decided to become a permanent

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

n citizen. However, by 1949 she was gravely ill, and she dwelt four months in a Washington D. C. hospital. She left the hospital to travel to Mexico City, to stay in the house of Costa Rican poet Eunice Odio. She died there in 1956. She was buried in a mausoleum in San Joaquín, D.F. In 1963 her remains were moved to San José. On the 55th anniversary of her death (8 July 2011), a commemorative plaque was installed over her tomb.

Literary work

Novels

* ''Por tierra firme'' (text lost) * ''La ruta de su evasión'', first-place winner of the concurso Centroamericano de Novela, hosted by the Guatemalan Ministerio de Educación Pública (1948)

Other works

* ''A lo largo del corto camino'', collection of essays, criticisms, and stories, with four chapters of ''La ruta de su evasión''. Editorial Costa Rica, colección ''Biblioteca de Autores Costarricenses'' (1961)

Stories or articles published

* ''Vela urbana'', ''

'', San José (March 1937) * ''Misa de ocho'', ''

'', San José (1937) * ''40º sobre cero'' (in Panamá), ''

'' (1937) * ''La lagartija de la panza blanca (Un cuento para hombres-niños de imaginación grande)'', dedicated to the painter Teodorico Quirós * ''El espíritu de mi tierra'', San José (August 1937) * ''Apología del limón dulce y el paisaje'', ''

'', Bogotá, Colombia (March 1944) * ''México es mío'', en ''

'', México (December 1944) * ''El negro, sentido de la alegría'' * ''Dos tormentas y una aurora'' (1944) * ''Casta sombría'' (1944) * ''Pasajeros al norte'', en ''

'', México (September 1944) * ''José de la Cruz recoge su muerte'' * ''Un regalo'', ''

'', México (July 1948) * ''Valle Alto'', ''Brecha'' (December 1958)

Evaluation of her work

Her most renowned novel is La Ruta de su Evasión (1948). Oreamuno draws on narrative techniques that were uncommon in other Costa Rican writers. It is believed that authors like

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

and

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...

influenced her literary creation. Costa Rican critic Abelardo Bonilla wrote that "In this as in all works of Yolanda Oreamuno there is boldness of conception and form, but there is a lack of internal unity".Bonilla, Abelardo. (1971). Historia de la literatura costarricense, Editorial STVDIUM, San José, San José, Costa Rica: p. 329

References

External links

Yolanda Oreamuno. ''La lagartija de la panza blanca''
story
Yolanda Oreamuno en la Editorial Costa Rica

Works of Yolanda Oreamuno

Yolanda Oreamuno in the blog ''Cosas de Jota''

Yolanda Oreamuno en Latindex UCR

about Yolanda Oreamuno, Centro Virtual Cervantes

review of the

Sergio Ramírez Sergio Ramírez Mercado (; born 5 August 1942 in Masatepe, Nicaragua) is a Nicaraguan writer and intellectual who was a key figure in 1979 revolution, served in the leftist Government Junta of National Reconstruction and as vice president of ...

novel in ''El arte literario y su teoría'' (5 November 2011) * Chase, Alfonso. ''Narrativa contemporánea de Costa Rica'', Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes, San José, 1975 * Cortés, Carlos. ''La gran novela perdida. Historia personal de la narrativa costarrisible'', Ediciones Perro Azul, San José, 2007 * Cubillo Paniagua, Ruth. ''Mujeres e identidades: las escritoras del 'Repertorio Americano' (1919-1959)'', Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, 2001 * Garnier, Leonor. ''Antología femenina del ensayo''. Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes, San José, 1976 * Kargleder, Charles y Warren H, Mory. ''Bibliografía Selectiva de la Literatura Costarricense'', Editorial Costa Rica, San José, 1978 * Quesada Soto, Álvaro. ''Breve historia de la literatura costarricense.'' Editorial Costa Rica, San José, 2008 * Rojas, Margarita y Ovares, Flora. ''100 años de literatura costarricense.'' Ediciones Farben, San José, 1995 * Rojas, Margarita, Ovares, Flora y otros. ''La casa paterna. Escritura y nación en Costa Rica'', Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, 1993 * Valdeperas, Jorge. '' Para una nueva interpretación de la literatura costarricense.'' Editorial Costa Rica, San José, 1979 {{DEFAULTSORT:Oreamuno, Yolanda 20th-century Costa Rican women writers 1916 births 1956 deaths Costa Rican novelists Costa Rican women novelists Writers from San José, Costa Rica 20th-century novelists Costa Rican expatriates in Chile Costa Rican expatriates in Mexico