Carmen de Burgos

She was born in 1867 in Almeria to a middle-class family, in which her father owned a gold mine. Her father José de Burgos Cañizares and her uncle Ferdinand were in charge of the vice-consulate of Portugal in Almeria. Her mother, Nicosia Segui Nieto, had come to the marriage with a substantial inheritance.[2]

She escaped her family when she met Arturo Asterz Bustos. He was fifteen years older than her; he was a poet, writer, and an alcoholic. Her new husband earned money as a typesetter on the family's newspaper, but she quickly discovered that this was to be her work. She and Arturo were unhappily married for 17 years, having four children - of whom only one survived.[3] In 1898 her infant son died and she enrolled at the local college to obtain a teaching certificate. She quickly advanced, and within a year she was qualified to teach primary. By the end of 1898, she was qualified to teach secondary school and by 1900 she was qualified to teach teachers. Armed with her new achievements, she could anticipate employment for life. She and her remaining daughter left her abusive and unfaithful husband and they set up their own house in Guadalajara where her first book was written.[4] During this time she had learnt how to write for a living, she had earned her independence and she had developed a contempt for the institution of marriage.[3] Burgos regarded herself as a feminist but her gender meant that her writings were not included when evaluations were made of Spanish (male) modernism.

However Burgos was nominally creating a number of novels for the "weekly novel" market that was popular at the start of the twentieth century. Burgos's novels however dealt with legal and political themes. Her novels dealt with taboo subjects including male and female homosexuality and transvestism. She highlighted the dual values applied that blamed women who were adulterers whereas men's involvement was forgiven. Women were given responsibility for illegitimate children and the law overlooked the abuse that some women found within their marriages.[5] It has been noted that Burgos raised controversial subjects concerning gender, the law and rights but her writing did not offer a solution.[3] She exposed to the readers the disparity between traditional values of female education and modern life.[5] Burgos however exposed difficult issues as a dramatic event and in 1904 she had led a campaign to improve the availability of divorce.[3]

In 1906, Burgos became the first female professional journalist in Spain as editor of Madrid's Diario Universal.[6] She also served as the first president of the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women (Liga Internacional de Mujeres Ibéricas e Hispanoamericanas).[6] During Franco's dictatorship, Burgos was written out of the history books.[2] Following the restoration of democracy she was again recognised and reinstated into the history of women's rights in Spain.[2]

• Works by Carmen de Burgos at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)