Díaz Lozano, Argentina (1909–1999)

Argentina Díaz Lozano (b. 15 December 1909, d. 1999), Honduran novelist. Born in Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, Díaz Lozano moved to Guatemala, the setting for many of her novels, in 1912 and returned to live in Tegucigalpa shortly before her death in 1999. She studied at the University of San Carlos and became the school's first woman to graduate in journalism. A prolific writer (whose work has been translated into French and English), she published her first novel at age seventeen and has received many awards for both her fiction and her journalism, among them the National Prize for literature in Honduras (1968) and awards from Guatemala, Brazil, and Italy. In 1957 ex-president Juan José Arévalo nominated her for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Her fiction belongs to the regionalist school predating the "Boom" of the 1960s in Latin American letters. Her novels focus on local themes, often exposing the plight of the poor, especially the tragic circumstances of Guatemalan Indians. Nevertheless, she shows little willingness to explore underlying issues of race, gender, and politics which might threaten the status quo. Her portrayal of women and Indians, while compassionate, essentially reflects the romantic and patronizing perspectives of the Ladino.

See alsoLadino; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The best-known novels include Mayapán: Novela histórica (1950), translated by Lydia Wright (1955); Y tenemos que vivir (1961), translated by Lillian Sears as And We Have to Live (1978); and Ha llegado una mujer (1991), based on Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms. She is mentioned briefly in Seymour Menton, Historia crítica de la novela guatemalteca, 2d. ed. (1985), and is exceedingly praised in José Francisco Martínez, Literatura hondureña y su proceso generacional (1987).

Additional Bibliography

Araya S., Seidy. Historia y ficción educativa en la narrativa de las mujeres: Estudio de un caso centroamericano, la novelística de Argentina Díaz Lozano. Heredia, Costa Rica: EUNA, 2004.

Díaz de Ortega, Rubenia. Los años del ayer. Tegucigalpa: s.n. (Alin Editora), 1996.

Umaña, Helena. Narradoras Hondureñas. Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras, 1990.

                                       Ann GonzÁlez