LUISA CARNÉS: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE, WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Luisa Genoveva Carnés Caballero (1905-1964), also known as Clarita Montes, was a Spanish writer and journalist, contemporary with the Generation of 27, but neglected by it. However, contemporary history claimed it, including it as an important part of said literary movement.

Very little was known about her, until a few years ago when her work began to be vindicated, flawless on a literary level, despite coming from a self-taught training. Although Luisa Carnés was not the same as the writers of her time, who mostly came from highly educated and wealthy backgrounds, she knew how to capitalize on her literary talent very well.

Her first writings are marked by her social and political commitment as a republican, concerned about the reality of the working class. The work of Carnés, who had the name Clarita Montes as a pseudonym, focused on her social meaning.

The writer always had a pedagogical look, bringing out the living conditions of the women of the time, women's rights, orphaned and exploited children, and, of course, her defense of republican legality.

Biography

Birth and family origins

Plaque placed by the Madrid City Council in the house of Luisa Carnés in 2017. Source: Triplecaña, via Wikimedia Commons

Luisa Carnés was born in Madrid on January 3, 1905. She was the daughter of Luis Carnés, a hairdresser, and Rosario Caballero, a housewife, both of very modest origin. Luisa was the first of six children, and at the age of eleven she had to drop out of school to start working in her aunt's hat shop.

Since then she began to be interested in the rights of working women, and in 1923 she took up the pen to write her first story. Although she did not have much money to buy books, she loved to read and taught herself with books that she exchanged in popular bookstores.

First jobs and self-taught training

As a child she began working as a hatmaker in a family workshop, first she was an apprentice, then an official and finally a teacher. She was a waitress in a tea room and later worked as a typist at the publishing house Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones (CIAP); this last job changed his life.

His training was limited to some basic courses that he took in a nuns' college. The additional knowledge she gained is due to her self-taught effort; She never stopped reading or writing, and that is shown in the mastery of her texts.

Although there is very little biographical information on this writer, clues have been collected from her life and it is said that her book Tea Rooms, which is her most successful novel, was inspired by the times she worked as a waitress. Likewise, her book From Barcelona to Brittany (Renaissance) narrates her journey into exile in 1939.

Social context of his work

At the age of 18 he began to write stories based on his life experiences, and before 1936 he had already published three novels: Peregrinos de Calvario (1928), Natacha (1930) and Tea Rooms –Mujeres Obreras- (1934).

The literary works of Luisa Carnés have four axes that are easily identifiable. The first has to do with her social commitment, her concern for the dispossessed classes and she talked a lot about that. She always did it in a critical and pedagogical way about changes in society.

Second, respect for the rights of working women and workers were his banner until the day of his death. She was interested in making known about female suffering and achieving equality. In one of the first works she wrote, the phrase can be read: "A creature who had the misfortune of being a woman."

The third axis of his work has to do with children, their rights and the defense of abandoned, abused and hungry children of the time. Finally, her fourth axis of interest was republican politics, and this was the one that cost her the most, sending her into exile from her native Spain, to Mexico where she lived until the end of her life.

Your jump to journalism

The job that changed her life was that of typist, which she held for the Ibero-American Publications Company CIAP, where she had her first opportunity as a writer and the doors were opened to journalism. She was a sports journalist in As, she collaborated in magazines such as Now, Estampa, Crónica, La Linterna, Mundo obrero and Frente Rojo.

Political life and exile

When the Civil War broke out in Spain, Luisa continued to write about the rights of women and the working class, but also began to collaborate with the press of the Spanish Communist Party. She published controversial articles in Mundo obrero and Altavoz del Frente, main propaganda media of the Communist Party.

In 1937, accompanied by other intellectuals and politicians, Luisa Carnés moved to Barcelona and then in January 1939 they crossed the French border. Here began a period of chaos, suffering and uncertainty for many Republicans. She, like many, stayed in a refugee camp for some time.

From there he managed to leave thanks to the mediation of Margarita Nelken and thus arrived in Paris, where he met with his son. After a period in New York, the writer arrived in Mexico City, where, at last, her husband, the writer Juan Rejano, met her.

In Mexico both were dedicated to journalism and collaborated in newspapers like La Prensa, El Nacional and Novedades. From this space they continued to defend the rights of the dispossessed classes and she established herself in her literary work.

Death and life in Mexico

The Spanish never returned to her country. She died in Mexico, when she was returning home, on March 8, 1964, after having delivered a speech for Women's Day for the Spanish colony of exiles in Mexico. Her death was tragic, in a traffic accident caused by heavy rain.

The car where she was traveling with her entire family crashed on the road, but everyone survived, except her. After her death, her literary work was also buried in oblivion that lasted decades.

Style

Luisa Carnés's literary style was characterized by being innovative, clearly framed in Modernism. Her narrative was fluid, fresh and with an easy to digest language, which makes her works accessible and understandable by a wide audience.

Madrid City Council paying tribute to the women of the Generation of 27. Source: Diario de Madrid, via Wikimedia Commons

His way of narrating allowed to vindicate feminism, giving it a different voice until its time, forceful, active and formed. Another particular aspect of her pen is the fact that it was properly experiential; Carnés had a gift to give life, through narrative, to all the circumstances he went through.

Plays

- The Sea Inside (1926).

- Pilgrims of Calvary (1928).

- Natacha (1930).

- Tea Rooms. Working women (1934).

- So it began (1936).

- From Barcelona to Brittany (Renaissance) (1939).

- Rosalía de Castro (1945).

- Juan Caballero (1956).

- The missing link (2002, posthumous).

Brief description of his works

The first of his stories that could be located was called Sea Inside (1926), published in La Voz, Madrid, on October 22, 1926. For its part, Peregrinos del Calvario (1928), was his first work printed with a tone religious common to his first texts.

Natacha (1930), his second narrative publication, was set in Madrid and with an interesting figure as the protagonist. On the other hand, Tea Rooms. Women workers (1934), was a novel with real experiences of working women of the time, republished in 2016.

For its part, Thus It Began (1936) was an “agitprop” (agitation propaganda) drama in an act that received rave reviews for its “originality and interest”. From Barcelona to Brittany (Renaissance) (1939), it served to narrate his journey from Spain into exile.

Rosalía de Castro (1945), was a clearly biographical work. Juan Caballero (1956), was a novel set in the Spanish postwar period, crude and experiential. Finally, The Lost Link (2002), was an unpublished novel that deals with Republican exiles and their relationship with their children.

References

1. Arias Careaga, R. (2017). The literature of Luisa Carnés during the Second Republic: Tea romos. Spain: Portal of literary magazines UAM. Recovered from: uam.es.
2. Luisa Carnés. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org.
3. The edition of all his stories pays off another debt with Luisa Carnés (2018). Spain: The Country. Recovered from: elpais.com.
4. De Pablos, M. (2019). Luisa Carnés, the lost ark. Spain: Global Letter. Recovered from: cronicaglobal.elespanol.com.
5. Martín Rodrigo, I. (2017). Luisa Carnés, the writer who did not appear in the photograph of the Generation of 27. Spain: ABC Cultura. Recovered from: ABC.es.