Bárbara Jacobs

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The Mexican writer Bárbara Jacobs 2006 in Madrid

Bárbara Jacobs (born October 19, 1947 in Mexico City , Mexico ) is a Mexican writer .

Life

Bárbara Jacobs grew up in a Lebanese family of emigrants in Mexico City: Her paternal grandfather was Antoun Yaoub and was born in Hasroun (Lebanon) in the mid-19th century. When he emigrated to the USA , his family name was renamed "Jacobs" by the immigration authorities on Ellis Island . Before that he had married the then 14-year-old Amina Briteh; both were Maronite Christians . The maternal grandparents were Dib Barakat Tahtac (born in Tripoli in 1893 and emigrated to Mexico in 1902) and Wahibe Landy Assemani (born in Asbury Park , New Jersey ). Her father, Emile Jacobs, was born in Manhattan in 1909 and studied journalism in New York City ; he lived and worked for a year as a journalist in Moscow (1934-1935), fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939 as a member of the Fifth Regiment of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and then returned to the USA. Her mother, Norma Barakat Landy, had been born in Mexico, had in Montreal ( Canada ) attended a convent school, but there Tuberculosis get. On the way home she made a stopover in Saginaw ( Michigan ) at the house of a distant relative, Amina Briteh, saw the picture of Emile Jacobs and fell in love with him. The two married and moved to Mexico, as life in the USA had become very difficult for Emile Jacobs, a communist who returned to Spain. In Mexico he ran a hotel that he later sold; He intended to live off the proceeds of his life, but he died completely impoverished in 1999. He retained his US citizenship until the end.

Barbara Jacobs has an older sister and three younger brothers; English and Spanish and partly Arabic and French were spoken at home, and she later learned Latin and Aramaic. From the age of seven to twenty-one, she grew up with her maternal grandparents. She attended various schools in Mexico City and Montreal; then she studied psychology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM); her thesis dealt with laughter in the history of science and literature.

She lectured in English at the Universidad Iberoamericana and in translation at the Colegio de México . After a car accident in which she suffered a vertebral fracture , she had to undergo several years of therapy and withdrew from teaching. But she published a daily column in the culture supplement of the daily La Jornada . She was also a jury member of the Casa de las Américas literary prize in Cuba , 1997, and the Premio Nacional de Novela in Bogotá , 2004.

After writing poetry in English as a child, she began to publish short stories and essays in various Mexican magazines in 1970 . In October of the same year she took part in a writing workshop run by Augusto Monterroso ; She later married the Guatemalan writer living in exile in Mexico and lived with him until his death in 2003. Today (2009) she lives with the painter Vicente Rojo, a Spaniard in exile, in Mexico City and Cuernavaca .

Awards

Works

Novels

  • Las hojas muertas . México, Ediciones Era, 1987. New edition: Madrid, Suma de Letra / Punto de lectura, 2002.
  • Las siete fugas de Saab, aka El Rizos . México, Alfaguara / CONCA, 1992 (colección Botella al Mar). New edition: México, Alfaguara, 1998.
  • Adiós humanidad. México, Alfaguara, 2000.
  • Florencia y Ruiseñor. México, Alfaguara, 2006.

Editor

  • (together with Augusto Monterroso): Antología del cuento triste, Barcelona, ​​Edhasa, 1992 . New edition: Madrid, Suma de Letras / Punto de Lectura, Santillana, 2004.

stories

  • Un justo acuerdo . México, Ediciones La Máquina de Escribir, 1979.
  • Doce cuentos en contra . México, Martín Casillas Editores, 1982. New edition: México, Editorial Aldus / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CNCA), 2005. (colección La Centena)
  • Carol dice y otros textos, Antología personal . México, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coordinación de Humanidades y Coordinación de Difusión Cultural: Dirección de Literatura / Ediciones Era, 2000. (colección Confabuladores) (Prólogo de Alicia Llarena, Epílogo (entrevista) de Roberto.
  • Vidas en vilo. México, Cultura Urbana: Libros / Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México / Colofón, 2007.

Essays and biographies

  • Escrito en el tiempo . México, Ediciones Era, 1985.
  • Vida con mi amigo. Madrid, Alfaguara, 1994.
  • Augusto Monterroso: Una biografía en sesenta fotos , Selección y prólogo: México, Alfaguara, 1996.
  • Juego limpio. México, Alfaguara, 1997.
  • Atormentados. México, Alfaguara, 2002.

Translations

In English

  • The Dead Leaves . Translated by David Unger. Connecticut, Curbstone Press, 1993.

In Portuguese

  • Folhas Mortas . Traduçâo: Maria Fernanda Ferreira Româo. Lisboa, Gradiva Publicaciones, 1998.

In Italian

  • Le foglie morte . Traduzione: Barbara Bertoni. Nardo, Besa Editrice, 1999.

literature

  • Peressini, Sonia: Doce cuentos en contra di Bárbara Jacobs: Commento critico e traduzione. Università degli Studi di Trieste, Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, Trieste, 1987. (Italian)
  • Eudave Robles, Irma Cecilia: Sincretismo cultural, arte experimental y de vanguardia en dos relatos hispanoamericanos contemporáneos: "Pollito Chicken", de Ana Lidia Vega, puertorriqueña, y "Dacti dung baal", de Bárbara Jacobs, mexicana. Universidad de Guadalajara, 1991. (Spanish)
  • Bados Ciria, Concepción: Prácticas narrativas autobiográficas en la obra de Bárbara Jacobs entre 1982 y 1992. University of Washington, Department of Romance Languages ​​and Literature, Seattle, 1995. (Spanish)
  • Trejo Téllez, Ramón: Desestilización del sujeto en la narrativa mexicana contemporánea: Un acercamiento centrífugo-centrípeta (en la obra de Carmen Boullosa, Bárbara Jacobs y María Luisa Puga). University of Texas, Austian, 2005. (Spanish)
  • Llanes, Manuel: La puerta cerrada en Las hojas muertas de Bárbara Jacobs o el testimonio de segunda mano. México: Universidad de Sonora, 2007. (Spanish)
  • Roberts-Camps, Traci: “La técnica del extrañamiento en Las hojas muertas y Adiós humanidad de Bárbara Jacobs .” In: Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea 8.15 (2002): 55-61.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jacobs, Bárbara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Mexico City , Mexico