María Luisa Elío Bernal
María Luisa Elío Bernal
Pamplona, 17th August 1926 - Mexico City, 17th July 2009
María Luisa Elío Bernal was born the 17th of August 1926 in Pamplona, and died the 17th of July 2009, in Mexico City. She was a Spanish republican writer living in the exile in Mexico City. She was born in a republican family, she was the youngest daughter of three, her father was a lawyer and judge called Luis Elío Torres, he was liberal and close to socialist ideas. Shortly after the start of the Civil War he was arrested for his ideas, which forced her wife and daughters to leave, without baggage, with the intention of reaching the neighboring country (France).
After some years the family finally reunited in Paris, and with the help of Indalecio Prieto, the family moved to Mexico, where they established their permanent residence.
In Mexico, María Luisa studied theater. In the 50’s she worked in various movies and published stories in newspapers. In 1954, a year after her mother 's death, María got married with Jomí Garcia Ascot, another spanish republican living in the exile. With him, and other reknown writers, like Alvaro Mutis, Tomas Segovia, Salvador Elizondo and Juan García Ponce, she made “En el balcón vacío” which was a movie inspired in the autobiographic stories that María Luisa wrote throughout the years. This was the only movie about the spanish exile that was actually filmed during the exile, by those living in it. The film won several international awards.
During the 80’s she worked as an exhibition coordinator in the Museum of Fine Arts, and in the 90’s, Televisa hired her as a producer and director of cultural programmes. It wasn’t until the last decade that she was re-discovered because of the assertion of the spanish exile, and now her life and work are very studied.
SOURCES:
https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/50105/maria-luisa-elio-bernal
https://www.bestialectora.com/2020/12/biografia-de-maria-luisa-elio.html