Clementina Suárez

Clementina Suárez (12 May 1902 – 1991) was an early Honduran writer, to Amelia Zelaya Bustillo and Luis Suarez. She attended public school until fifth grade. In 1923 her father died, and Suárez left her rural family home without financial support or the support of her mother. She had frequent troubles such as lack of food and water, and other things such as strangers and a huge fear of kidnappers as she traveled, hence she was so young. Eventually, she made her first destinations were town where she had relatives who provided a place for her to stay. She lived and worked various jobs in Trujillo, La Ceiba, San Pedro, Tela, and finally Tegucigalpa, all while writing. She eventually moved in with Marco Antonio Rosa, also a writer. They had two daughters together, however, never married. Shortly after the birth of her second daughter, the poet, now 27, left Rosa and married Guillermo Bustillo Reina, but the marriage ended after less than a year.

She worked as a waitress to feed herself and her two children, but she still wrote. She wore shorts and a bikini, celebrating her body not only in life but also in her poetry. She was seen as a free woman, independent and outspoken. Tegucigalpa was shocked because of her modern way of behaving and breaking established rules traditionally attached to "feminine" behaviour. She was also the first woman to publish a book in Honduras.

In December 1991 delinquents were merciless to her. The poet Roberto Sosa did her final interview.

Her first two published poems reflected her independent character. She walked the streets of the capital dressed as a bellboy to sell her work when she published six issues of a journal named Mujer (woman). In 1936–7 she was in Cuba seeing its resistance against fascism. This observation and the news of the Spanish Civil War is thought to have expanded Suárez's horizons. She returned to her home country in 1958. She died in Tegucigalpa in 1991. She has been said to be her country's premier woman poet. She was also said to be the first woman in Honduras to wear shorts and lipstick; which together with appearing naked reading communist revolutionary poetry, added to her infamous reputation.