María Luisa Algarra facts for kids

María Luisa Algarra (1916 in Barcelona – 1957 in Mexico City) was a Spanish playwright who lived and wrote in exile in Mexico after the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

Life

María Luisa Algarra “was educated first at local schools, then studied at the University Autonomous of Barcelona. At age Twenty she received her law degree, a rather uncommon occurrence for a woman at the time.” She emigrated to France at the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). There she aided the resistance movement during the Second World War, an effort that resulted in her three-year internment in the Vernet concentration camp. Upon her release, she left Europe to permanently live in Mexico where she met José Reyes Mesa, the famous painter, whom she married and with whom she had two daughters, Reyes and Fernanda. She had a close friendship with a fellow playwright, the Mexican Emilio Carballido, who described Algarra as “asombrosa…atractiva…alta, altísima” (astonishing…attractive…tall, very tall). She died in 1957 at the age of 41.

Work

Algarra was best known as a playwright, although she also wrote movie and television scripts and radio novels (arguably having most financial success in the film industry). As well as her original work, she also wrote theatre adaptations of Cervantes’ La Cueva de Salamanca and Juan Ruiz’ La verdad sospechosa. While many of her plays were produced during her lifetime, her texts were not published until after her death. Individual plays were featured in a variety of theatre publications, and a complete anthology was published by Universidad Veracruz, a Mexican Publishing House, in 2008. Her plays often feature a female protagonist and treat a variety of themes, including the situation of women in society, familial conflict, friendship, exile, and love, and Algarra treats many of these concepts from a psychological perspective. Some of her works deal with issues specific to Mexico or her own experience in exile, while others feature universally-applicable issues.

Published plays

• Judith (1936)
• Primavera inútil (1944)
• Sombra de alas (late 1940s)
• Una passion violenta (early 1950s)
• Casandra o la llave sin puerta (1953)
• Los años de prueba (1954)

Movie scripts

• Échame la culpa (1959) (story)
• La venenosa (1959) (writer)
• Amor se dice cantando (1959) (screenplay) (story)
• Los santos reyes (1959) (story)
• Aladino y la lámpara maravillosa (1958) (writer) ... aka Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp International: English title)
• Las mil y una noches (1958) (dialogue) ... aka A Thousand and One Nights (International: English title)
• Refifí entre las mujeres (1958) (story) (as Ma. Luisa Algarra)
• Escuela para suegras (1958) (story) ... aka School for Mothers-in-Law (International: English title)
• La sombra del otro (1957) (dialogue)
• La mujer marcada (1957) (story)
• Mal de amores (Rogaciano el huapanguero) (1957) (additional dialogue)
• Que me toquen las golondrinas (1957) (writer) ... aka La despedida (Argentina)
• Las aventuras de Pito Pérez (1957) (additional dialogue) ... aka The Adventures of Pito Perez (International: English title)
• Tú y las nubes (1955) (story) ... aka Limosna de amores (Spain)
• Nosotros dos (1955) (screenplay) (story) ... aka We Two (International: English title)
• La posesión (1950) (writer)
• Encadenada (El yugo) (1947) (additional dialogue) ... aka Encadenado (Mexico)

See also

In Spanish: María Luisa Algarra para niños