Inés Echeverría Bello

Inés Echeverría Bello (22 December 1868–13 January 1949) was a Chilean writer and feminist.

Early life and education Inés Elena Echeverría Bello was born on 22 December 1968 in Santiago to an upper class Catholic Chilean family. Echeverría's father, Félix María Echeverría Valdés (1841–1915), was a lawyer and member of the Conservative Party. Echeverría's mother, Inés Bello Reyes, was the granddaughter of Andrés Bello and a member of the prominent Bello family.

On 10 April 1892, Echeverría married Joaquín Larraín Alcalde, a Captain in the Chilean Army. Together Larraín and Echeverría had four daughters, Rebeca, Inés, Luz and Iris. Later she used the pseudonym Iris, as well as Inés Bello and Rainbow. In 1918, Echeverría contributed articles to "La Nación". Besides the works mentioned and her writings in "El Mercurio", "Familia", "Zig-Zag", and "Sucesos", she published Emociones Teatrales, a collection of theatrical criticisms.

In 1915, Inés Echeverría Bello participated in the founding of a Reading Club along with Amanda Labarca, and in 1916 the Ladies Club along with Delia Matte de Izquierdo, both instances in which the women of the gentry of Santiago could have intellectual and political discussions, and where the feminist movement was beginning to emerge at the beginning of the 20th century.

She was also close friends with Eliodoro Yáñez and Arturo Alessandri, who she started collaborating with in the 1910s.

In 1922 she became the first academic woman in the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras at the University of Chile. Iris can be considered as the most representative figure of avant-garde spiritualism, seeing the soul as what justified human existence and the most sublime and transcendent experience.

The was very prominent among the Santiago elite of the time, as it had to do with the social and political influence of the compromised families, the lack of precedents regarding convictions for conjugal crimes to members of the aristocracy, the cultural situation of the moment in terms of the conception of conjugal crimes and their legal aspect. He filed an appeal in cassation with the Supreme Court, trying to annul the judicial sentence.

Works

Hacia el Oriente, Zig-Zag, Emociones teatrales, Santiago: Imprenta Barcelona, 1910. Hojas caídas. Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1910. Entre deux mondes. París: Bernard Grasset, editeur, 1914. La Hora de queda. Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1918. (short story) Cuando mi tierra nació. Santiago: Nascimento, 1930. (historical novel) Nuestra raza: a la memoria de Andrés Bello: su 4ª generación. Santiago: Universitaria, 1930. Alessandri: evocaciones y resonancias. Santiago: Empresa Letras, 1932?. Por él. Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1934. Entre dos siglos. Santiago: Eds. Ercilla, 1937. Cuando mi tierra era niña. Santiago: Nascimento, 1942. 2v. (historical novel) Cuando mi tierra fue moza. Santiago: Nascimento, 1943–46. 3v. (historical novel) Au-delà-- : poème de la douleur et de la mort: fragments d'un journal de la mort. Santiago: Imprenta La Sudamericana, 1948 Fue el enviado: no lo olvidemos. Santiago: Nascimento, 1950 (published after death) Memorias de Iris. 1899-1925. Santiago: Aguilar, 2005. (translated from French)