Alicia Yánez Cossío
Alicia Yáñez Cossío is a prominent Ecuadorian poet, novelist and journalist.
Yáñez Cossio is one of the leading figures in Ecuadorian literature and in Latin America, and she is the first Ecuadorian to win the Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, which she received in 1996.
In 2008 she received Ecuador's highest literary prize, the "Premio Eugenio Espejo" for her lifetime of work.
Biography
Daughter of Ing.el Alfonso Yánez Proaño and Clemencia Cossío Larrea. When she was six years old she entered the Sagrados Corazones School of Quito, where she stayed for a while due to academic failings stemming from a dislike of arithmetic. However, since she was young, Cossío she always desired to be a writer because of her great talent with words.3Yáñez Cossío would later say: “I had an extremely happy childhood, maybe a bit boyish, influenced by the first books I read: the works of Julio Verne and Tarzan’s feats. I never liked dolls.”4
Her characters frequently represent the community that fights to rescue woman's elementary rights. Male chauvinism is a recurring theme in her writing. Irony, sarcasm and hyperbole make evident twisted masculine superiority, where she critiques social concepts, such as virginity, homosexuality, etc.
She has other unprecedented novels with similar characteristics. One of them is "El Cristo Feo".
In 1993, she became a widow. She is a woman whose fame has expanded beyond the borders of her homeland.
In 1996, she received the Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz for the best Latin American novel written by a woman.5
In 1998, she edited "Retratos cubanos" with 18 stories written between 1957 and 1961 from Cuba. They mainly discussed man's battle to attain freedom. When the original authors left the island, the stories were confiscated, later to be re-written in 1996, mixing history with crude realism.
She is the mother of writer Luis Miguel Campos Yáñez.
Works
Novels
Bruna, soroche y los tíos. Bruna and Her Sisters in the Sleeping City, trans. Kenneth J. A. Wishina Yo vendo unos ojos negros Más allá de las islas. Beyond the Islands, trans. Amalia Gladhart La Cofradía del Mullo de la virgen Pipona. The Potbellied Virgin, trans. Amalia Gladhart La casa del sano placer El cristo feo Aprendiendo a morir Y amarle pude... Sé que vienen a matarme Concierto de sombras Esclavos de Chatham- ''Memorias de la Pivihuarmi Cuxirimay Ocllo''
Poetry
Luciolas De la sangre y el tiempo- ''Plebeya mínima''
Short stories
El beso y otras fricciones- ''Relatos cubanos''
Theater
- ''Hacia el Quito de ayer''
Children's literature
El viaje de la abuela Pocapena Los triquitraques ¡No más!- ''La canoa de la abuela''
Awards
- National Novel Contest – Fiftieth Anniversary of the journal "El Universo" of Guayaquil
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize
- Eugenio Espejo Prize in Literature