Armonía Somers

Armonía Liropeya Etchepare Locino (7 October 1914 – 1 March 1994) was an Uruguayan feminist, pedagogue, novelist and short story writer. She was sometimes referred to as Armonía Etchepare de Henestrosa or, by her pseudonym, Armonía Somer (sometimes spelled Armonía Sommers). A member of the literary movement Generación del 45, Somers wrote in a transgressive style. Her contemporaries included Silvina Ocampo, Griselda Gambaro, Luisa Valenzuela, Elena Garro, and Cristina Peri Rossi.

It was thought impossible that her first novel, La mujer desnuda (The Naked Woman, 1950), could have been written by a woman because of the shocking erotic content. When not there, she lived on the 16th floor of the skyscraper Palacio Salvo.

Early years Born in Pando, Somers was the eldest of three daughters of deeply catholic mother María Judith Locino and the anarchist businessman Pedro Etchepare. Her basic studies occurred in a Spanish primary school in Pando, being her the only girl admitted there. After that, she continued her studies at the Normal school of Montevideo.

Career In 1933, she finished her university studies in pedagogy at the University of the Republic, where she became interested in the teaching of young people. She taught in different schools after that and so became aware of the problems facing different social environments, Later, she was invited by the government of France to collaborate with the organization of the prison system in that country. being appointed deputy director of the Museum a few years later.

In 1960, Somers was invited by the government of France to move to that country and study the organization and operation of rehabilitation centers and correctional institutions; She was the founder and editor of the journal Documentum in that year. In 1962, she represented Montevideo at the United Nations during the Seminar on Education for Development and Social Progress; being appointed director of the Library and Pedagogical Museum in Uruguay. From then on, she stopped teaching to devote herself to writing, perhaps because of the incompatibility of a very active life in her career and her literary ambitions. Her work grew slowly with long pauses and periods of silence, one between 1953 and 1963 and another between 1969 and 1978.

Selected works Somers' work is often considered part of the "45 Generation" of Uruguayan literature.

In Alberto Paganini, Alejandro Paternain, and Gabriel Saad's 1969 book Cien autores del Uruguay, Somers is described ahead of the generation to which she belonged, her artistic direction having more in common with the "Generation of Crisis." Other critics classify her, along with Juan Carlos Onetti,

Novels 1950, La mujer desnuda. Montevideo. 1965, De miedo en miedo. Montevideo. 1969, Un retrato para Dickens. Montevideo. 1986, Sólo los elefantes encuentran mandrágora. Buenos Aires.

Short stories and novellas 1953, El derrumbamiento. Montevideo. 1963, La calle del viento Norte y otros cuentos. Montevideo. 1967, Todos los cuentos, 1953–1967. Montevideo (two volumes) 1978, Muerte por alacrán. Buenos Aires. 1982, Tríptico darwiniano. Montevideo. 1986, Viaje al corazón del día. Montevideo 1988, La rebelión de la flor. Montevideo 1994, El hacedor de girasoles. Montevideo