María Wiesse

María Wiesse was born on 19 November 1894 in Lima.[1] Her parents were Teresa Romero Paz and Carlos Wiesse Portocarrero, a historian and a professor at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.[2] Wiesse spent her childhood in Lausanne, Switzerland and later in London, where her father worked as a lawyer for the Peruvian Corporation.[1] In 1902 she returned to Peru at the age of eight, and concluded her studies with the French nuns of the Colegio Sagrados Corazones Belén.[2]

In 1916, Wiesse started her journalistic career with cultural notes in the newspapers La Crónica, El Perú and El Día.[3] Later she collaborated with the newspapers La Prensa and El Tiempo.[2]  In 1918, Wiesse published two comedies: "The older sister" (comedy in one act and three pictures); and "The modistón".[4]

Around 1923 Wiesse founded the National Council of Women of Peru. Between 1923 and 1926, Wiesse traveled constantly outside Peru, she is even a source of study of the work of her husband’s travel book that he wrote about the visit that both made to Mexico, with annotations of the cultural life and the rapprochement to the social environment of that country.[2]

In 1924-1926, Wiesse published three volumes of poetry and poetry prose entitled Motivos lricos, Nocturnos and Glosas franciscanas.[1] Between 1926 and 1930, she published as series of articles in the magazine Amauta, founded and directed by José Carlos Mariátegui.[5] Amauta magazine was focused on the influence of cinema on the social and cultural environment of Lima, and Wiesse published there her reviews on films and music, as well as other related articles.[3] She also tended to write on contemporary politics, art, and everyday life.[6]

Apart from producing her own publications, Wiesse was a regular contributor to several magazines such as Variedades, Mundial, Social, Hora del Hombre, Messenger in agriculture, Almanaque Agropecuario del Perú, and in newspapers such as La Crónica.[3] Wiesse also wrote biographies on Santa Rosa de Lima, on Sabogal, her husband, and on her friend José Carlos Mariátegui. She published several books of stories, including Nocturnos (1925) and Nueve relatos (1954), as well as the novels La huachafita (1927), Diario sin dates (1948) and Tríptico (1953).[4]

Wiesse directed a magazine Familia aimed at the Lima's women of the middle and upper classes, where she focused on literary and musical themes to this determined reading public.[3] She had a music program on Radio Nacional.[7]

María Wiesse died on 29 July 1964 in Lima.[8]

In 1922, she married the painter José Sabogal (1888-1956), with whom she had two children: José Rodolfo Sabogal Wiesse (1923-1983) and Rosa Teresa Sabogal Wiesse (1925-1985).[7]