Mercedes Carbonera Hair She was a writer, she was born in Moquegua on February 7, 1845. There is no exact news about the first years of her life, although it is known that her father's name was Gregorio Cabello, and that Mercedes, from a very young age, showed great skills for writing. literature, having come to publish some of his verses, hiding his identity under the pseudonym "Enriqueta Pradell".
she moved to Lima around 1865, a time of heyday of romanticism . In the capital she married a prestigious doctor, Urbano Carbonera, who contributed decisively to the emotional and literary maturation of his wife. He brought her closer to science and positivism, while at the same time distancing her from her coarse politics. Mrs. Cabello de Carbonera began her collaborations as such in the Correo del Perú (1872-1877) and in the Revista de Lima (1873), with articles that demonstrate a firm radicalism; She also published collaborations in other Lima newspapers, such as La Alborada, Perla del Rímac, La Bella Limeña (1872) or El Semanario del Pacífico . His pen also became known abroad, thanks to the articles that were published in El Plata Ilustrado, El Correo de Paris, La Habana Elegante, La Revista Literaria (Bogotá) and the Ibero-American Album (Madrid), among other forums. She also attended, with relative frequency, the social gatherings of Juana Manuela Gorriti. Her style was enriched by reading novels by Balzac, Zola and Stendhal, although her innovative ideas meant the liquidation of romanticism and tended to establish a realistic theory, impregnated with positivism and feminist paradigms. Between 1886 and 1894, her most productive period, she gave print six novels and one major essay. her She then suffered numerous public attacks and serious health problems. The boastful winners of the pierolist revolution of 1895 were bitter against it, especially Juan de Arona, Ricardo Palma and Benjamín Cisneros .
Mercedes Cabello's literary contribution
The creative work of Mercedes Cabello consists of the following titles:Sacrifice and reward , novel awarded by the Ateneo de Lima (1886) -which incorporated her among its members-, where it describes the life of Chorrillos in the middle of the century and poses a passionate drama in which romantic elements still predominate, but it is not exempt from criticism Social. She then publishes Los amores de Hortensia (1887), a novel that exposes the portrait of an upper-class woman, whose heart must be silent before the demands of interests and ambitions. A novella, Eleodora (1887), originally published in Madrid, it will become the successful narrative entitled The consequences (1890), which confirms the literary skills of the author; one of her innovations is that, leaving the narrow framework of urban intrigues, she describes the countryside of her native land based on memories. White Sun (1890) is a decidedly controversial work, due to its audacious plot, drawn from the spheres of Lima's high society. Followed by The Conspirator (1892), where the political life of our first republican century is presented in a framework of censorship of the sleaze and demagoguery of the great leaders. She ends the series of her novels with The Religion of Humanity (1893) and Count Leo Tolstoy (1894), a mixture of artistic, literary and philosophical work. In the field of critical study, we must mention The modern novel (1892), text awarded with the "Golden Rose" in the inter-American essay contest promoted by the Literary Academy of Buenos Aires.
Mercedes Cabello's critics
Doña Mercedes did not have a placid life:her determined adherence to a renovating thought, her determination to reflect the surrounding reality without hindrance and her condition as a woman with her own ideas, provoked the reaction of the conservative sectors, the clergy and the old writers ( especially Juan de Arona). However, who criticized her the hardest was José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma, who not only lowered her skills as a stylist, but also rejected the thinker . These severe denunciations motivated her social ostracism and her fall into madness. she Interned in the Cercado de Lima asylum, she died on October 12, 1909, at the age of 64 . The audacity of this writer was rooted in composing realistic novels in a medium still dominated by the romantic echo; she in breaking the confinement of women; in dealing with political problems, bringing to himself the wrath of those referred to (friends of President Balta, for example); and in opening a path to the national novel. Her style was not good, her expression was wrong, and her vocabulary was poor, which was compensated by the great bravery of the concept. Although they have not been able to tackle the problem in depth, Mario Castro Arenas, Augusto Tamayo Vargas, Luis Fabio Xammar and Luis Alberto Sánchez were the first to undertake the reassessment of the work of Doña Mercedes.