Alice Lardé de Venturino

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Lardé and the second or maternal family name is Arthés.

Alice Lardé de Venturino
1934
Born	Alice Lardé Arthés (1895-06-29)29 June 1895 San Salvador, El Salvador
Died	13 October 1983(1983-10-13) (aged 88)
Occupation	Writer
Years active	1919–1983
Relatives	Alicia Nash (niece) John Forbes Nash Jr. (nephew-in-law)

Alice Lardé de Venturino (29 June 1895 – 14 October 1983) was a Salvadoran poet and writer. Internationally recognized for her lyric poems, Lardé also published scientific works. She has been recognized by the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador and the government of Chile, both of whom have renamed public streets and offices in her name.

Early life

Alice Lardé Arthés was born on 29 June 1895 in San Salvador, El Salvador to Amalia Arthés Echeverría and Jorge Lardé Bourdon. Her father was of French heritage and was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, coming to El Salvador at the age of eleven in 1869. Her father was a chemical engineer and her mother was a teacher. Lardé was one of eight siblings: Jorge, Coralie, Luis, Alice, Maria, Carlos, Enrique and Zelie, who grew up on a farm near Lake Ilopango. The family was well-to-do and the children had a privileged education. Her brother Jorge would become a noted geologist and seismologist, her brother Enrique was a writer and editor, and her sister Zélie would become a noted painter. Carlos became a surgeon and moved to the United States, where his daughter, Alicia became the spouse of Nobel Laureate, John Forbes Nash Jr.

Career

Lardé's first publications appeared in the Salvadoran magazine Espiral in 1919. The journal was edited by Miguel Ángel Chacón and her brother, Enrique and she collaborated with it through 1922. In 1921, she published her first volume of poetry, Pétalos del alma (Petals of the Soul) in San Salvador. On 16 July 1924, she married the Chilean sociologist, Agustín Venturino Poetry books followed, including Alma viril (Virile soul, 1925), Sangre del trópico (Blood of the Tropics, 1925) which were both published in Santiago. The couple soon moved to Buenos Aires, where she continued to write and publish for the newspaper Patria. While she was in Argentina, she served as a delegate for El Salvador to the Feminist Encounter, held in 1925. She also collaborated with Mexican newspapers, publishing in El Heraldo, Excélsior, and La Revista de Yucatán, among others. In 1927, Lardé was a delegate to the International Feminist Congress in Favor of Peace, held in Brazil. Fifty-six of her poems were included in volume 53 of the anthology Poesías: colección las mejores poesías (líricas) de los mejores poetas (Poetry: collection the best poetry (lyric) of the best women poets, 1926). It, like Belleza salvaje (Wild Beauty, 1927) and El nuevo mundo polar (The New Polar World, 1929) were published in Spain. Mexican poet and member of the Mexican Academy of Language, Juan B. Delgado compared Lardé's skill with words comparable to those of Gabriela Mistral or Alfonsina Storni.

In 1939, Lardé was recognized in Chile when both a library and a public school were named in her honor. From the 1940s, many of her publications included scientific works including: La dinámica terrestre y sus fenómenos inherentes (The terrestrial dynamics and its inherent phenomena, 1943), ¿Es la electricidad el origen de la vida y de la muerte? (Is electricity the origin of life and death?, 1943), Mi América: Odisea de un Colegial Salvadoreño a través de Centro y Sudamérica (My America: Odyssey of a Salvadoran Scholar through Central and South America, 1946), Fórmulas gráficas prácticas del vitaoculiscopio y oculivita (Practical graphic formulas of vitaoculiscope and oculivita, 1950), La Electricidad: Alma Mater Universal, Fenómenos Cosmológicos y Biopsicológicos, (Electricity: Universal Soul, Cosmological and Psychological Phenomena, 1954), La frigidez sexual de la mujer (The sexual frigidity of women, 1967), El Volumen Poético Antológico Grito al Sol, (The Anthological Poetry Volume Greetings to the Sun, 1983).

In November 1976, Lardé was honored by the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador and in 1979, she was honored by the Unión de Mujeres Americanas as the Woman of the Year.

Death and legacy

Lardé died on 13 October 1983 leaving around thirty unpublished manuscripts. In 1998, a postage stamp bearing her likeness was issued in a series Celebrating Women. In 2003, she was selected with a group of noted Salvadoran women as one of the names to be included in a street and park renaming project. The National Library of El Salvador hosted an exhibition, El legado literario de mujeres escritoras (The literary legacy of women writers) in 2016. The event featured the works of the three dominant Salvadoran poets of their era: Lardé, along with Prudencia Ayala and Josefina Peñate y Hernández.

References

Bibliography

• Hernández, Wendy (11 April 2016). "Legado literario de escritoras salvadoreñas" [Literary legacy of Salvadoran women writers] (in Spanish). San Salvador, El Salvador: Diario Digital. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
• Lardé de Venturino, Alice (1927). Belleza salvaje: (apreciación del ministro de instrucción pública de Argentina) (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain: Espasa-Calpe. OCLC 20915346.
• Lardé y Larín, Jorge (1978). "Los Cerros quemados del Lago de Ilopango". El Salvador, inundaciones e incendios, erupciones y terremotos [El Salvador, floods and fires, eruptions and earthquakes: The Burnt Hills of Lake Ilopango] (in Spanish) (1st ed.). San Salvador, El Salvador: Academia Salvadoreña de la Historia. pp. 64–70.
• Rodríguez, Ileana; Szurmuk, Mónica (2015). The Cambridge History of Latin American Women's Literature. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-41910-6.
• Sabido Sánchez, Fernando (30 January 2012). "5733—Alice Lardé de Venturino". Poetas Siglo Veintiuno (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain: Poetas Siglo XXI—Antologia Mundial + 20.000 Poetas. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
• Ticas, Sonia Priscila (2001). Historia, feminismo y literatura: escritoras salvadoreñas 1920–1960 [History, feminism and literature: Salvadoran writers 1920–1960] (Ph. D.) (in Spanish). Berkeley, California: University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
• Ticas, Sonia Priscila (May 2005). "Las escritoras salvadoreñas a principios del siglo XX: Expectativas y percepciones socio-culturales" [Salvadoran women writers at the beginning of the 20th century: Socio-cultural expectations and perceptions]. Diálogos Revista Electrónica (in Spanish). 5 (1). San Pedro, Costa Rica: Universidad de Costa Rica: 611. doi:10.15517/dre.v5i1-2.6251. ISSN 1409-469X. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
• Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Biblioteca América (1992). Catálogos de la Biblioteca "América": Monografías e publicacións periódicas (in Spanish). Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Imprenta Universitaria. ISBN 978-84-8121-078-1.
• Vargas Méndez, Jorge (2003). "Alice Lardé de Venturino: Del Amor por la Poesía a la Ciencia" [Alice Lardé de Venturino: From love of poetry to science]. Salvadoran Libros (in Spanish). San Salvador, El Salvador. Archived from the original on 2 March 2008. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
• Vásquez, Verónica; Guerrero, Francisca (22 March 2002). "Alicia Lardé de Nash: Refugio de un Genio" [Alicia Lardé Nash: Refuge of a genius]. La Prensa Gráfica (in Spanish). Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador. pp. 118–119. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
• "1998 El Salvador Stamp Issues". Sociedad Filatelicaes. October 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
• "Alice Lardé de Venturino, Pétalos de Alma" [Alice Lardé de Venturino, Petals of the Soul]. Binaes (in Spanish). San Salvador, El Salvador: Biblioteca Nacional de El Salvador "Francisco Gavidia". 11 July 2017. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
• "El Salvador Registros civiles, Nacimientos 1895–1897: Alice Lardé Arthés" [El Salvador Civil Registry, Births 1895–1897: Alice Lardé Arthés]. FamilySearch (in Spanish). San Salvador, El Salvador: Archivos provinciales. 15 July 1895. FHL microfilm #4689549, Certificate #303. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
• "Llevarán calles de El Salvador nombres de mujeres destacadas" [Names of prominent women will take over the streets of El Salvador] (in Spanish). Mexico City, Mexico: Cimac Noticias. 8 March 2003. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
• "Zèlie Lardé (1901–1974)". Artista del Mes (in Spanish). San Salvador, El Salvador: Museo de Arte de El Salvador. 2015. Archived from the original on 10 June 2015. Retrieved 19 September 2017.

Further reading

• Cañas-Dinarte, Carlos (2002). Diccionario de autoras y autores de El Salvador (in Spanish) (1st ed.). San Salvador, El Salvador: Concultura, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y el Arte. ISBN 978-9-992-30086-2.
• Cañas Dinarte, Carlos (2000). Diccionario escolar de autores salvadoreños (in Spanish) (2nd ed.). San Salvador, El Salvador: Dirección de Publicaciones e Impresos, Concultura. OCLC 492582541.
• Galindo, David Escobar (1987). Indice antológico de la poesía salvadoreña (in Spanish) (2nd ed.). San Salvador, El Salvador: UCA Editores. ISBN 978-8-484-05054-4.