A new session of Mañás poéticas, an open and free reading of texts by different authors, which in March we dedicate to the poet Alejandra Pizarnik.

Born into a Russian-Jewish family, she was born in Buenos Aires on 29 April 1936. Her father and mother were 27 and 26, respectively, and had arrived from Paris after spending some time with her paternal uncle. With the rise of Nazism, almost the entire family disappeared. Only the uncle they had stayed with in Paris and another aunt, her mother’s sister, who also moved to Buenos Aires, survived. She had a liberal childhood, in keeping with her family environment. She attended Philosophy and Journalism classes in the Argentine capital, where Professor of Modern Literature Juan Jacobo Barjalía encouraged her to pursue a literary career. Around that time she began to show a kind of fascination with death, present throughout her work, and also came into contact with Surrealism through the painter Batlle Planas.

She also explored journalism, completing some assignments, but left that vocation for other worlds that drew her more strongly. With fragile health due to asthma, her father supported her. His jewellery business allowed the family to live comfortably, and he paid for the publication of her first book, La última inocencia (1956), which appeared in Botella al Mar, the publishing house of Galician editor Arturo Cuadrado, in which Luís Seoane was also involved. He also paid for her psychological consultations, which she used to try to bring order to an unbridled mind.

She tried a change of residence and moved to Paris from 1960 to 1964, but her chronic dissatisfaction persisted beyond any remedy she tried. In 1971 she wrote a letter to her great love, Silvina Ocampo —who did not reply—, in which she speaks of troublesome respiratory problems and a powerful sense of death drawing near, emotionally, literarily and perhaps physically. This feeling can be summed up in these two passages from the letter:

“Why, beloved Silvina, can any piece of shit breathe easily while I remain shut in and I am Phaedra and I am Anne Frank?

And death, so close to me (so fresh!) oppresses me. (…) Sylvette, it is not a fleeting mood, it is an infinite re-cognition that you are marvellous, brilliant and adorable.”

Another important relationship in her life was with the poet Olga Orozco, who dedicated the poem Pavana del hoy para una infanta difunta que amo y lloro to her.

In Work Room A, on the third floor. Admission is free for up to 15 participants.