Fanny Buitrago is a Colombian fiction writer and playwright best known for her novel Señora de la miel. She was born in Barranquilla, Colombia between 1943 and 1945.

Fanny Buitrago
Born1943-5
Barranquilla, Colombia
OccupationWriter and playwright
Genre
Notable worksSeñora de la miel

Early life

edit

Fanny Buitrago was born in Barranquilla, Colombia between 1943 and 1945,[1] and grew up in Cali.[2] Her father Luis Buitrago was from Tunja, and her mother was from Barranquilla.[3] Buitrago has a sister Letty, who has worked as her editor and literary agent, and a brother Luis.[4] According to Letty, Fanny "began to read and write at a very early age, under the influence of two indefatigable readers: her father, Luis Buitrago, and her maternal grandfather, Tomás González".[3] As a child she would invent stories for her siblings in exchange for money or chores; around the age of 8 or 9, she started writing stories by hand.[4]

Literary career

edit

Buitrago's best-known book is Señora de la miel (Señora Honeycomb or Mrs Honeycomb; translated into English in 1996).[5] Her first novel was El hostigante verano de los dioses (The Tormenting Summer of the Gods; 1963).

In 1982 Buitrago was an award fellow of the DAAD Künstlerprogramm in Berlin.[6] In 1984 she was a writer in residence at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.[7]

Themes

edit

She generally avoids overt political messages, although she has dealt with the civil unrest of la Violencia, preferring to focus on broken homes and families which act as metaphors for a country suffering great upheaval.[8] Her works have been associated with the Nadaísmo movement in Colombia.

Works

edit

Novels

edit
  • El hostigante verano de los dioses (1963)
  • Cola de zorro (1970)
  • Los Pañamanes (1979)
  • Señora de la miel (1993); English translation: Señora honeycomb (1996)
  • Bello animal (2002)
  • El legado de Corín Tellado (2008)
  • En torno al frenesí (2020)

Short story collections

edit
  • Las distancias doradas (1964)
  • La otra gente (1973)
  • Bahía sonora: relatos de la isla (1975)
  • Los amores de Afrodita: cuatro cuentos y una novela breve (1983)
  • Los fusilados de ayer (1987)
  • ¡Líbranos de todo mal! (1989)
  • Los encantamientos (2003)
  • Canciones profanas (2011)

Plays

edit
  • El hombre de paja (1964)
  • A la diestra y a la siniestra (1987)
  • Al final del ave María (1991)
  • El día de la boda (2005)

Literature for children

edit
  • La casa del abuelo (1979)
  • La casa del arco iris: una novela de la infancia (1986)
  • Cartas del palomar (1988)
  • La casa del verde doncel (1990)
  • Historias de la Rosa Luna (2008)
  • Un genio en la pantalla (2013)
  • Los cuentos de Juanita Campana (2019)

Awards

edit

In 1964 she won the Cali Theater Festival Prize for her play El hombre de paja (Scarecrow).[8]

References

edit
  1. ^ "Nacida entre 1943 y 1945, la fecha oscila dependiendo de la fuente y la escritora misma prefiere no precisarla", footnote p471, Celis, Nadia (April–September 2016). "Tras medio siglo de El Hostigante Verano de los Dioses: Fanny Buitrago y la "autenticidad" caribe". Revista Iberoamericana (in Spanish). 82 (255–256): 471–486. doi:10.5195/reviberoamer.2016.7401.
  2. ^ Williams, Raymond Leslie (2007). "Buitrago, Fanny [Biography]". The Columbia Guide to the Latin American Novel Since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 136–137. doi:10.7312/will12688. ISBN 978-0-231-12688-5.
  3. ^ a b Buitrago, Letty (1994). "Fanny Buitrago". In Calderón Schrader, Camilo (ed.). Gran Enciclopedia de Colombia 9 Biografías (in Spanish). Vol. 1 Abad–Lemaitre. Bogotá, Colombia: Círculo de Lectores. pp. 96–97. ISBN 958-28-0294-4.
  4. ^ a b Celis, Nadia (July–December 2014). "La magia de contar historias: Fanny Buitrago, en conversación con Nadia Celis Salgado". Revista de Estudios Colombianos (in Spanish). 44: 48–52.
  5. ^ "Senora Honeycomb (Review)". Publishers Weekly. 1996-01-29. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  6. ^ Borsche, Dahlia; Fehrmann, Silvia, eds. (November 2022). Jahrbuch 2022 (PDF). Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD. p. 108.
  7. ^ "Colombian residents | International Writing Program". Iwp.uiowa.edu. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  8. ^ a b Smith, Verity (1997). Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Taylor & Francis. pp. 152–153. ISBN 9780203304365.