Rosa Chacel

Rosa Chacel (June 3, 1898 – July 27, 1994) was a famous and sometimes controversial writer from Spain. She was a native of Valladolid.

Chacel was born in Valladolid, the daughter of a teacher who sent her to live with her grandmother in Madrid. Chacel's move to Madrid occurred in 1908. Because of her weak health, she was home-schooled by her mother.

By 1909, Chacel's mother enlisted her at Madrid's Escuela de artes y oficios to study drawing, but, soon after, Chacel followed her teacher, Fernanda Francés, to the newly built Escuela del hogar y Profesional de la Mujer, also in Madrid. It was while in the latter school that Chacel began to take some feminist views. In 1915, Chacel, intrigued by the world of sculpture, enrolled at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, but she soon lost interest in the aforementioned topic and abandoned the school by 1918.

Chacel then went on to become a regular at the Cafe Granja del Henar and at the Ateneo de Madrid. These two places were favorite locations for aspiring writers from all over Spain and other European countries. She delivered a controversial speech there, after a conference about women and their possibilities. Like much of the world at that era, machista views predominated in Spain, and Chacel's dialogue on that conference were considered off base or nonsensical by many members of Madrid's society.

Chacel, nevertheless, went on championing feminism as a new way to live for modern women, and, in 1921, she married a famous painter of the time, Timoteo Perez Rubio. In 1922 the couple settled in Rome after Pérez Rubio was granted a scholarship at the Academia de España. That same year, Chacel wrote her first article for the "Ultra" magazine. In 1927, she and her husband returned to Madrid.

...
Wikipedia