Elisa Serrana

Elisa Pérez Walker (1930 – 4 September 2012), better known by the pseudonym Elisa Serrana, was a Chilean feminist, teacher, and novelist. She was a member of her country's Generation of '50, which also included , Elena Aldunate, Mercedes Valdivieso, and Matilde Ladrón de Guevara.

Biography Elisa Pérez Walker was born into a family of landowners. Her mother was Blanca Walker Larraín and her father was Santiago Pérez Peña, a civil engineer, farmer, deputy for Caupolicán Department (1924; 1926–1930), Minister of Justice (1932), mayor of Magallanes (1937), and president of the Chilean Golf Federation (1949–1951).

About them she would say:

Elisa, who had eight brothers, was educated at the , about which she later said, "Family affection failed to sweeten the bitter memory I have of my childhood: the school, the classmates, and the teachers were tremendously odious."

At age 19 she married Horacio Serrano, an essayist 20 years her elder, the former Minister of Agriculture (1940), a future member of the Academia Chilena de la Lengua (1970), and columnist for El Mercurio. The couple had five daughters, among them writer Marcela Serrano,

Elisa Serrana worked at the publishing house from 1962 to 1976, becoming director of the Disney children's magazine department.

In the literary field, much of her work concerned the role of bourgeois women in Chile. Four novels followed: Chilena, casada, sin profesión, an exhibit of the effects of feminism in Chilean society of the 1920s; Una; En blanco y negro; and A cuál de ellas quiere usted: "mandandirumdirunda", which received a distinction in the 1985 María Luisa Bombal Contest.

In the opinion of Michelle Prain Brice, Serrana portrayed

Quote|...with acuteness the passivity of the Chilean woman. She was a sales success and, judging from the results, resounded deeply with her readers, contributing, of course, to changing entrenched habits.

Novels Las tres caras de un sello, Editorial Zig-Zag, Santiago, 1960, (reissued: 1961, 1964) Chilena, casada, sin profesión, Zig-Zag, Santiago, 1963 (reissued: 1964, 1965, 1967, 1974; Andrés Bello 2002, 2003) Una, Zig-Zag, Santiago, 1964, (reissued: 1965, 1973) En blanco y negro Zig-Zag, Santiago, 1968 (reissued: Plaza & Janés, 2005, ) A cuál de ellas quiere usted: "mandandirumdirunda", Editorial Andrés Bello, Santiago, 1985 Obras selectas, Andrés Bello, Santiago, 2002,