Francisca Herrera Garrido

Category: Writer
Birth Date: 6th march 1869 (†4th November 1950)
Birth Place: A Coruña
 Curriculum

She was brought up in an upper-middle class family. Until 1915 he lived in A Coruña and then went to Madrid to live with her eldest sister Enriqueta (Keta). At the beginning of the war both sisters came back to Oleiros (A Coruña) to spend the summer. Their house in Madrid was plundered and had economic troubles. Francisca Herrera Garrido was educated as women used to be at that time. She was a self-taught writer, whose interest in reading started when she was a teenager. On 4th March 1945 she became a member of the Galician Academy although he died in 1950 without taking posession of her chair.

 Work & Activities

Her literary career started with three poetry books: Sorrisas e bagoas (Madrid, 1913), Almas de muller...,¡Volallas na luz! (A Coruña, 1915) and Flores do noso paxareco (A Coruña, 1919). In 1920, she published the novel Néveda in A Coruña and then A ialma de Mingos (Ferrol, 1922), the short novel Martes de antroido (A Coruña, 1925) and the story A neta da naipeira (published in the 20th number of the magazine Nós, 1925). She preferably wrote in Galician language. She only published in Castilian language the novels Pepiña (Madrid, 1922), Répobra (Madrid, 1926) and Familia de lobos (Madrid, 1928). Francisca Herrera Garrido went on with the romantic-idealistic movement started by Rosalía de Castro. Her language is very rich as far as lexicon and syntax are concerned. She used rural vocabulary to express the different shades of the landscapes and the characters states of the mind. She normally wrote about the rural landscape, the role of women as mother and feminine resignation. As far as her essay production is concerned she published the prologue to Cantares Gallegos by Rosalía de Castro, A Muller Galega (published in the 6th number of the magazine Nós, 1921) and Rosalía de Castro (published in Diario Español, Buenos Aires, 1925).

 Other Interesting Aspects

The Galician Academy dedicated her 'O Día das Letras Galegas' (The Day of the Galician Letters) in 1987.