The mystery of personality

There are several reasons for such unfair forgetting, among others, their itinerant existence: He exiled from Mexico – in the framework of the 1968 student protests, accused of one and others – and lived in Paris, New York and Madrid, crossing economic difficulties.

• Author
  Elena Garro
• Editorial
  Bamba
• Year
  2024
• Pages
  336
• Price
  19.90 euros

Also its independent and rebellious character, and certain maneuvers in the shadow of the powerful Octavio Paz, with whom he maintained a conflictive relationship, which led to a sound divorce. With Octavio Paz traveled to our country in 1937since this participated in the II International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture. Fruit of this experience was the book nothing complacent ‘Memories of Spain 1937’, written without sticking to slogans, which did not cease to grade enmity. The Bamba publishing house has proposed to recover the free voice of Elena Garro and has the project of putting unpublished titles in Spain of the Mexican writer.

The one that now comes to us is ‘Testimonies about Mariana’, perhaps the novel that refers us to what its own author confessed: “I cannot write anything other than autobiographical,” as Professor Patricia López Lopátegui recalls, Biographer and Garro specialist, In the prologue to volume. López Lopátegui points out that it was not easy to write ‘Testimonies about Mariana’, and that in his diary there are episodes, situations, feelings that would fictionalize in this work.

Elusive

In it, divided into three parts, A trio of characters They will be those who explore Mariana’s personality, which we will know through these ‘testimonies’, written in the first person, anchored in the memories of his deal with Mariana. The first is offered by Vicente, his lover, the second his friend, Gabrielle, who presents himself as “his accomplice and his confidant,” and the third, André, who struggles to get her love. Each tries to understand Mariana, who has disappeared, and investigate the reason that he was so transcendental in his life.

But Mariana, light and darkness, is elusive, and reveals to André: “Life is sad and inside my head there are many dead birds …”. Confidence that makes André ask: «The white and blue stripes of the pajamas gave him the air of a prisoner. Who or what was Mariana?». The first answer is from her husband, Augustus, who appears as very present and out The loneliness’.

It can be so, but the reader does not put the accent on this issue. Above all, it better not overlooks that ‘Testimonies about Mariana’ is a achieved and unique exploration around the mystery of personality, capital issue where there are, so loved by Miguel de Unamuno The complex of knowing each other. And even oneself.