MARÍA LUISA BOMBAL: BIOGRAPHY, LITERARY STYLE, WORKS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

María Luisa Bombal (1910-1980) was a Chilean writer, recognized for being the first to treat magical realism in her works and for her innovative way of capturing the role of women in her different literary works.

It was the forerunner in addressing the issue of repression that existed against women. She herself moved away from the common model of the female role, which at the time focused on marriage and submission at the social level.

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In this sense, he was in charge of ending any type of stereotype. He touched on topics such as women's sexual desire or anger. Her behavior on a personal level and her works transformed the society of the time in equal measure.

His first novel was published when Bombal was only 23 years old and was spread thanks to the magazine Sur.

Biography

Childhood and studies

María Luisa Bombal was born on June 8, 1910. She was originally from Paseo Monterrey, Viña del Mar, in Chile. Her mother was Blanca Anthes Precht and her father died when she was very young. This event was the one that motivated the family to move to Paris, France, when Bombal was only eight years old.

In the French capital he completed his studies of basic and secondary education. By 1928 she enrolled in the Faculty of Letters at La Sorbonne, a historic French university in the Parisian city. His career culminated in three years and his thesis dealt with the French writer Prosper Mérimée.

When he finished his training at the university, he returned to Chile, where he met Eulogio Sánchez Errázuriz, who was a person close to the writer's family. The relationship she had with Sánchez was intense in her early years, however, by 1933 they had already separated.

After this event, Bombal moved to Buenos Aires (Argentina) thanks to a recommendation from the writer Pablo Neruda, who was a friend of the Chilean and consul in that country.

His first publications

Already in Buenos Aires, the writer was part of the intellectual movements that developed in those times. She had a special bond with the different writers who published regularly in the well-known magazine Sur.

It was in that magazine that his work The Last Fog was published in 1935, thus giving him his literary beginning in a formal way. During the following years he continued to publish other of his works and in 1938 he was able to publish La amortajada, which was considered his most outstanding work.

To jail

In 1940 she returned to Chile being already a consecrated writer and with recently published stories like The Tree and The New Islands.

A year later he experienced one of his most controversial episodes, when he went to jail for wanting to kill his former partner Eulogio Sánchez. The writer waited for her in front of the entrance of the Crillón hotel and shot her, although she only managed to hit her in one of her arms. She was only jailed for a few months as Sánchez forgave her.

U.S

Once the charges were dropped and pardoned for the assassination attempt, Bombal once again changed his place of residence. In 1944 she moved to the United States, where she lived for about 30 years. Her adaptation was not easy and, in fact, she admitted having suffered from alcoholism during the first months that she spent alone in the North American territory.

Everything changed when she met Fal de Saint Phalle, a French businessman whom she married in 1944. The couple even had a daughter whom they called Brigitte, the same name as the main character in the second novel published by Bombal.

In the United States he managed to reactivate his professional career in literature. Her focus at that time was more oriented towards stories for theatrical works, with La historia de María Griselda (1946) being the first work she published in the United States. During those years she also came to work for UNESCO.

Her husband Fal de Saint Phalle died in 1969, an event that caused Bombal to change residence again. She returned to Buenos Aires where she lived until 1973. Then she made the decision to return to her native Chile, where she settled permanently.

Despite 30 years spent outside of Chile, Bombal never renounced his nationality. This became an impediment in his career, since it prevented him from being eligible for awards for his work in other countries.

In Chile alcohol reappeared in his life and took a leading role, which ended up deteriorating his health a lot. Her death came on May 1980, being alone without any company of family or friends and in a hospital. She never received the National Prize for Literature.

Literary style

Bombal's literary work was short, but had a great impact because of the style he used. In Latin America her work made her one of the forerunners of contemporary style. Her work and style were compared with that of important writers such as Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner.

At the end of the 20th century, the name of María Luis Bombal reappeared among literary critics. Studies and new concepts allowed her work to be analyzed from a new perspective.

The gender problems exposed by the writer had great relevance. Her themes broke paradigms in relation to the time in which her works were published, as she questioned the role that men and women should play in the society of which they were part.

He was able to put elements of fantasy together with real elements in a way that was believable. One element never overshadowed the other, rather they supported each other.

Some critics credit Bombal with having modernized or transformed some elements of literature. For example, the prose he used had a style of poetry.

In his first two works, he resisted the style being simply the narration of things, delving into them about the hidden stimuli that each of the characters had.

Generation of 1942

He was part of the Generation of 1942 in Latin America, whose main focus was on the narration that served to denounce events at the social level. A realism that was more of a censor or judge was used, which came to be known as neorealism.

Bombal was part of a group that was made up of authors such as Juan Rulfo or Arturo Uslar Pietri. The generation of 1942 had several styles, but all had the same purpose: to renew and deal with social aspects.

Bombal was one of the first people to develop magical realism. At first it received a lot of criticism for its innovation and its detractors claimed that the fantastic elements showed a clear absence of commitment. In the end, this style was adopted by more writers and magical realism gained traction as a style or genre of literature.

Plays

His works were few in terms of novels and diffused works. The intensity and importance of his work lay in the innovation of the content and how it was presented.

He used some of his personal experiences to translate them into his stories. Selma Lagerlöf and Virginia Woolf were great influences on her work.

One of her works was translated into English by herself. In addition to her novels and short stories, she published three chronicles and conducted some reviews and interviews.

The last mist

This work is narrated by the main character of the story. It is about a woman who has been married for a short time. The union happened with one of her cousins, who still has the memory of her previous wife fresh.

The protagonist of the novel is asked to be a copy of the dead wife, whom her husband still considers perfect. This frustrating relationship is further broken when the female lead character has an extramarital affair. The memory of that adventure is what allows her to tolerate her marriage.

The Shroud (1938)

When the story begins, the main female character just dies. After a few hours, while the character is covered in his bed, he gets to observe everything that happens without anyone noticing. The visit of the people who are going to say goodbye to her already dead reminds her of events from her past. She remembers her family, her first love, etc.

Jorge Luis Borges, a personal friend of the writer, came to question whether Bombal was capable of developing the plot of this story. The writer later called the work "a book that our America will not forget."

The story of María Griselda

María Griselda turned out to be the daughter-in-law of the protagonist in La amortajada. The characters in these stories stand out a lot. She was a misunderstood woman, whose most notable characteristic was her great beauty. All the characters revolve around María Griselda and she found in nature an escape route for her problems.

This story was first published in August 1946 after appearing in a US magazine called Norte. In later years it was also published in the magazine Sur, from Argentina and in the magazine Zig-Zag.

References

1. Agosín, M., Gascón Vera, E., & Renjilian-Burgy, J. (1987). Maria Luisa Bombal. Tempe, Arizona.: Editorial Bilingüe.
2. Areco, M., & Lizama, P. (2015). Biography and textualities, nature and subjectivity. Santiago: Editions Universidad Católica de Chile.
3. Bombal, M., & Osorio, L. (1983). Maria Luisa Bombal. Mexico: National Autonomous University, General Directorate of Cultural Diffusion, Editorial Unit.
4. Gligo, A. (1995). Maria Luisa. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Sudamericana.
5. Vidal, H. (1976). Maria Luisa Bombal. San Antonio de Calonge, Gerona: Children of José Bosch.