Concha
Méndez
poeta e impresora (1898-1986)
1898-1926
She is born in Madrid on July 27, 1898. She studies at the French school of Santa Genoveva. She enrolls at the Center for Historical Studies to study for the degree of Spanish teacher. She meets Luis Buñuel in San Sebastian and they initiate a long courtship that last between the years in which he lived at the Residencia de Estudiantes and his departure for Paris in 1925. After he leaves, she befriends Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti and Maruja Mallo, who introduce her into the artistic and intellectual circles of the capital.
1927-1931
She becomes member of the Liceo Club Femenino, a women’s club headed by María de Maeztu in Madrid. She publishes her first poetry book, Inquietudes and Surtidor. She writes the script for Historia de un taxi, a film shot in Seville. After her first trip to England, she moves to Buenos Aires where she befriends Norah Borges, Consuelo Berges, Alfonso Reyes, and Guillermo de Torre, among others. She publishes her third poetry book, Canciones de mar y tierra and writes for the Argentinean journal Síntesis and the newspaper La Nación. She returns to Madrid in 1931 and publishes two plays: El ángel cartero, a children play, and El personaje presentido, an avant-garde piece.
1932-1944
She marries Manuel Altolaguirre in1932. They will share their life in Madrid, London, Havana, and México City.
(See Soledades juntas. Manuel Altolaguirre y Concha Méndez (1932-1944)
1944-1951
After the end of their marriage, she publishes Poemas. Sombras y sueños, Villancicos, and El solitario (part three of her trilogy for the theater), sponsored by the journal Rueca, the platform of a group of Mexican women writers headed by Carmen Toscana. She writes for the journal Las Españas.
1952-1986
She moves with her daughter and her son-in-law to her new house in Coyoacán where she keeps the family archives. She publishes two new poetry books, Vida o río and Entre el soñar y el vivir, and Antología poética. In 1953, she takes Luis Cernuda as a lodger in her house, where he lives until his death in 1963. She reads her poetry at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1979. Helped by her granddaughter, Paloma Ulacia, she writes her memoirs and finishes her last poetry book, Con el alma en vilo. She dies on December 28, 1986 at her home in Coyoacán.
1990
Her memoirs, Concha
Méndez. Memorias habladas, memorias armadas are published.
