Victoria Ocampo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Victoria Ocampo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Victoria Ocampo CBE (April 7, 1890 January 27, 1979) was an Argentine writer and intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as La mujer ms argentina ("The quintessential Argentine woman"). Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the legendary literary magazine Sur, she was also a writer and critic in her own right and one of the most prominent South American women of her time. Her sister, Silvina Ocampo, a writer also, was married to Adolfo Bioy Casares.

Victoria Ocampo
CBE

Contents
1 Biography 2 Honors 3 Biopics 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links
Born

Victoria Ocampo, 1931. April 7, 1890 Buenos Aires, Argentina March 1, 1979 (aged 89) Bccar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina Nationality Argentina Alma mater University of Paris Occupation writer and intellectual

Biography
Born Ramona Victoria Epifana Runa Ocampo in Buenos Aires into a high-class society family, she was educated at home by a French governess. She would later write, "the alphabet-book in which I learned to read was French, as was the hand that taught me to draw those rst letters."[1]

Died

She is sometimes said to have attended the Sorbonne: on page 39 of her biography of Ocampo, Doris Meyer states that, during the family's 19061907 trip to Paris, the same during which she was etched by Paul Csar Helleu, the Ocampos allowed 17-year-old Victoria, "well-chaperoned", to audit some lectures at the Sorbonne and at the Collge de France. She remembered particularly enjoying Henri Bergson's lectures at the latter. She was not, of course, ever matriculated at either; her very old, traditional and rich family frowned on formal education for females, and so Victoria had none. In 1912, Ocampo married Bernando de Estrada (aka Monaco Estrada). The marriage was not happy, and in 1920, the couple separated, and Ocampo began a 13-year affair with her husband's cousin Julin Martnez, a diplomat.[2]

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In Buenos Aires, she was a lynchpin of the intellectual scene of the 1920s and 1930s. Her rst book, written in French, was De Francesca Beatrice (1923?), a commentary on Dante's Divine Comedy. Other works include Domingos en Hyde Park; El Hamlet de Laurence Olivier; Emily Bront (Terra incgnita); a series called Testimonios (ten volumes); Virginia Woolf, Orlando y Ca; San Isidro; 338171 T.E. (Lawrence of Arabia) (a biography of T. E. Lawrence) and a posthumously published autobiography. There is also an edited book of dialogues between Ocampo and Borges. Perhaps of greater signicance than her own writing, she was founder (1931) and publisher of the magazine Sur, the most important literary magazine of its time in Latin America. Among the writers published in Sur were Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Sabato, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Julio Cortzar, Jos Ortega y Gasset, Manuel Peyrou, Albert Camus, Enrique Anderson Imbert, Jos Bianco, Santiago Davobe, Ezequiel Martnez Estrada, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Waldo Frank, Gabriela Mistral, Eduardo Mallea, Silvina Ocampo (her younger sister), Alfonso Reyes, and Enrique Pezzoni. During World War II, she supported and edited from Argentina in collaboration with her friend and translator Pelegrina Pastorino, the antiNazi magazine "Lettres Francaises" directed by Roger Caillois and in 1946 she was the only Argentinean who attended the Nuremberg Trials. In 1953, Ocampo was briey imprisoned for her open opposition to the regime of Juan Domingo Pern. She was made a member of the Argentine Academy of Letters in 1976 (the rst woman ever admitted to the Academy; she formally took her seat on June 23, 1977). The "cultural dialog", initiated in 1977 by the de facto government but organized by UNESCO, was held in her home, Villa Ocampo, in San Isidro, Buenos Aires Province; she eventually donated the house to UNESCO.

Victoria Ocampo, c. 1925.

Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria at "Villa Ocampo"

At "Villa Ocampo" Igor Stravinsky, Andr Malraux and Rabindranath Tagore had been her guests, also Indira Gandhi, Jos Ortega y Gasset, Antoine de Saint-Exupry, Ernest Ansermet, Rafael Alberti, etc. Graham Greene dedicated his 1973 novel The Honorary Consul to her, "with love, and in memory of the many happy weeks I have passed at San Isidro and Mar del Plata" and in 1934 she was the recitant in the American premiere of Andr Gide-Igor Stravinsky's opera-ballet Persphone at the Teatro Coln conducted by the composer. Victoria Ocampo died in Buenos Aires in 1979, and is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Honors
Maria Moors Cabot prize Commander of the Order of the British Empire
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Doctor honoris causa Harvard University, Columbia University Premio de Honor de la SADE Gold Medal Acadmie franaise

Biopics
Her life was portrayed in a lm for TV in 1984 "Four Faces of Victoria", directed by Oscar Barney Finn with four actresses playing the different ages of Victoria (Carola Reyna, Nacha Guevara, Julia von Grolman and China Zorrilla). Her attitude and political views were depicted in Monica Ottino's theater play "Eva and Victoria", an imaginary confrontation between young Eva Pern and old Victoria. The play ran successfully during the eighties with Soledad Silveyra and China Zorrilla as Ocampo.

Notes
1. ^ Villa Ocampo: History (http://www.villaocampo.org/ing/historico/victoria.htm) 2. ^ Villa Ocampo (http://www.villaocampo.org)

References
Chiappini, Julio: Victoria Ocampo. Biografa, Rosario, Editorial Fas, 2012; 2 vol. Meyer, Doris: Victoria Ocampo: Against the Wind and the Tide (Texas Pan-American Series paperback, University of Texas Press Reprint edition, 1990) Originally published New York, George Brazillier, 1978. Re-issue ISBN 0-292-78710-3. Dyson, Ketaki Kushari: In Your Blossoming Flower Garden: Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 1988; reprinted 1996. ISBN 81-260-0174-7. Bassnett, Susan, 1990 (ed.): Knives and Angels: Women Writers in Latin America. London/New Jersey: Zed Books.

Sur Magazine, 1952

External links
Victoria Ocampo's Project (http://www.villaocampo.org/ing/) Victoria Ocampo's Chronology (http://www.villaocampo.org/ing/historico/victoria.htm) Ketaki Kushari Dyson, On the Trail of Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo (http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pKetaki1.html)

Villa Ocampo, the writer's San Isidro home, now a cultural center.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Victoria_Ocampo&oldid=597196906" Categories: 1890 births 1979 deaths People from Buenos Aires Argentine people of Galician descent University of Paris alumni Argentine writers Argentine women writers Argentine writers in French Argentine publishers (people) Burials at La Recoleta Cemetery Maria Moors Cabot Prize winners Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
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