Matilde Cherner

Matilde Rafaela Cherner (pen name, Rafael Luna; 1833 - 15 August 1880) was a 19th-century Spanish writer and journalist. She has been described as a woman "of progressive ideas and clear and marked political convictions" and a "convinced federal republican".

Early life and education Matilde Rafaela Cherner was born in Salamanca in 1833. Her mother was Antonia Hernández Luna, a native of Aldeadávila de la Ribera, Salamanca, and her father was Juan Cherner, a native of San Fernando, Cádiz. The child's education included learning Latin and French.

Career Cherner wrote in La Revista Salmantina, where her first poem was published in 1852, and in El Federal Salmantino. During 1872–1873, several of her poems appeared in the latter while she already lived in Madrid. She also published plays such as Don Carlos de Austria and La Cruz as well as critical works including Juicio crítico (Critical judgment) on Miguel de Cervantes' Novelas ejemplares.

She collaborated in the Madrid women's magazine La Ilustración de la Mujer, where three poems, a literary story, a study on religious music, and a series of articles on the feminine situation are preserved, collected under the column of "Las mujeres pintadas por sí mismas" (The women painted by themselves), these signed with her real name. Cherner also collaborated in La Ilustración Republicana Federal.

Perhaps her most controversial work was María Magdalena, in which she criticized legalized prostitution as she had already done in her articles of La Ilustración de la Mujer. The prostitute narrates how she has come to this degrading profession. This novel may be the first Spanish novel in which a prostitute is the protagonist. Later, in 1884, the physician Eduardo López Bago published La prostituta, which was highly criticized and the object of some controversy. In 1881, Benito Pérez Galdós published La desheredada, a work that Clarín considered the story of a prostitute. Cherner's work, which was defined by the author in her prologue as naturalistic, although with nuances, is more reflective than descriptive. In it, with a moralizing tone, she criticizes the society that, while needing prostitutes, rejects them.

Selected works Novels Las tres leyes Ocaso y aurora (1878) María Magdalena: estudio social (1880) Novelas que parecen dramas (1878)

Drama Don Carlos de Austria La Cruz

Literary criticism Juicio crítico