Portal, Magda, 1901-1989

Peruvian poet, journalist, political activist and feminist. Born in Barranco, Peru, on May 27, 1901. Died in Lima on July 11, 1989. Magda Portal was a pioneer in the avant-garde literary movement of the 1920's, publishing the magazines Flechas (Lima : 1924); Trampolín; Hangar (Lima : 1926) and Timonel; Rascacielos (Lima : 1927). In 1925, with Serafín Delmar, she travelled to Bolivia where she spent a year lecturing and published: Bandera roja, a worker's newspaper, and, El derecho de matar (La Paz, Bolivia : Imp. Continental, 1926). Upon her return to Peru she began her collaboration with the magazine Amauta (Lima, Peru : 1926-1930) and her involvement in Peruvian literary and political life. Her affiliation with José Carlos Mariátegui (founder of Amauta) and others led to her arrest in June 1927. Deportation to Cuba followed shortly. In 1928 Portal reunited in Mexico with Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of the Popular Revolutionary Alliance for America (APRA). After 3 years of activity with APRA in Mexico and other countries, Portal and other exiles returned to Peru in 1930, where she assumed responsibility as leader of the femenine section of APRA's National Executive Committee, becoming increasingly involved in women emancipation issues. Magda Portal was arrested in 1934 and in 1948, in connection with her APRA activities. Her experience served as the basis for many of her poems in Costa sur (Lima : 1945) and her only novel La Trampa (Lima : 1956). Portal travelled extensively in Latin America, spending 6 years in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile (1939-1945). In Chile she met Rómulo Betancourt, president of Venezuela, and Chile's socialist leader Salvador Allende. Magda Portal was director of Mexico's Fondo de Cultura Económica publishing house in Lima, from 1958-1971. She became an active affiliate of the Lima-based feminist group ALIMUPER (Alliance for the Liberation of Peruvian Women) and served as an officer of Peru's National Association of Writers and Artists (ANEA), having been president from 1982 to 1986. During her periods of exile and throughout her life, she collaborated with numerous periodicals such as El Comercio, El Correo, La Crónica, El Diario, Expreso, Ojo, El País and La Prensa. She was honored as a writer by the Fourth Inter-American Congress of Women Writers in Mexico City in 1981.

From the description of Magda Portal papers, 1930-1989. (University of Texas Libraries). WorldCat record id: 44071674

...