María Luisa Elío

María Luisa Elío Bernal (17 August 1926 – 17 July 2009) was a Spanish writer and actress exiled in Mexico. She wrote two books and the script of the award-winning autobiographical film El balcón vacío (The Empty Balcony), which was the first film to depict the lives of Spanish exiles during the Spanish Civil War. She also performed on Mexican television and Mexican films. Elío was involved in several cultural and literary circles. She was also an inspiration for Gabriel García Márquez. His masterwork One Hundred Years of Solitude was dedicated to Elío and her husband.

Biography Born in Pamplona on 17 August 1926, María Luisa was the third and last daughter of Luis Elío Torres and Carmen Bernal López de Lago, who had married in 1920.

Her father, a lawyer and judge, suffered for his left-wing tendencies during the Spanish Civil War in Pamplona and was imprisoned, but managed to escape. After arriving in Mexico, María Luisa studied drama with Magda Donato, Margarita Nelken's sister, at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Months later, she attended the academy of Seki Sano, a Japanese exile living in Mexico. Octavio Paz, then director of the theater group Poesía en Voz Alta (Poetry Out Loud), invited her to join the troup. During that time, she worked closely with Juan José Arreola, Leonora Carrington, Carlos Fuentes, Juan García Ponce, Elena Garro, Luis Felipe Vivanco, Alfonso Reyes and Juan Soriano. Those who came to Mexico as children from Spain as exiles, are sometimes called The Nepantla Generation, a Nahuatl word which describes the state of belonging to two places at the same time. Neither of one, nor the other. Elío described herself as being caught between past and present.

In 1960, her husband was invited to go to Cuba and participate in a film, Cuba 58 being filmed there. Originally five segments were planned for the film, but the final composition contains only three, two of which were created by García Ascot. García planned a new project, a musical comedy in the style of West Side Story, but had to abandon the project as the political situation in Cuba deteriorated.

Creative work Elío started writing her short-stories during her stay in Cuba. In Havana, she met the literary group Orígenes. In several interviews she noted that she started writing because of the explosive atmosphere of the Cuban Revolution and the supporting friends she found there, among others Eliseo Diego, Fina García Marruz, and Alejo Carpentier. Elio's friendship with García Márquez continued over the years. When he moved to Spain in 1967, Gabriel and Mercedes hosted her at their home in Barcelona. Elio was also among those invited to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 1982.

Selected works Tiempo de llorar, México, El Equilibrista, 1988. Cuaderno de apuntes en carne viva, México, El Equilibrista, 1995. Tiempo de llorar y otros relatos, Madrid, Turner, 2002.

Filmography No matarás (1943) Girls Boarding School (1943) La guerra de los pasteles (1944) El jagüey de las ruinas (1945) En el balcón vacío (1961) Remedios Varo (1967) Narrator (voice)