Blanca Martínez Mera

Blanca Martínez Mera (October 5, 1897 – June 20, 1976) was an Ecuadorian writer and teacher. With the publication of her book En la paz del campo in 1940, she became the first woman to publish a novel in Ecuador.

Biography Blanca Martínez Mera was born in 1897 in Ambato, in Ecuador's Tungurahua province. Her parents were Rosario Mera Iturralde and Luis A. Martínez, also a well-known writer. She spent her childhood on the family hacienda known as Quinta de Atocha, but she was orphaned by age 12. She completed her secondary studies at the Colegio de la Providencia. She was sometimes known as Blanca Martínez de Tinajero.

Later in life she became the director of the Casa de Montalvo, a museum and cultural center in Ambato, whose eponymous magazine she edited for many years.

Martínez Mera died in Ambato in 1976. She is buried in the Nuestra Señora de La Merced Municipal Cemetery. A school in her hometown bears her name in honor of her memory.

Selected works

En la paz del campo (1940) Purificación (1942) Luz en la noche (1950)