Hilma Contreras

Hilma Contreras Castillo (born December 8, 1913 in San Francisco de Macorís , † January 15, 2006 ibid) was a Dominican writer.

Life

Hilma Contreras was born on December 8, 1913 in San Francisco de Macorís as the daughter of the renowned doctor Darío Contreras and his wife Juana Castillo in the Dominican Republic. The family lived in Paris between 1914 and 1920, where the father worked in surgery. When the family returned to the Dominican Republic in 1920, Contreras attended the Ercilia Pepin primary school in Santiago de los Caballeros . But in 1925 the family returned to France, where Contreras graduated from high school and then studied French, English and literature at the Sorbonne . In 1932 she began studying archeology at the Archaeological Institute in Paris, which she returned to San Francisco de Macorís in 1933. From 1933 to 1942 she worked between San Francisco de Macorís, Santiago de los Caballeros and Santo Domingo , where she also had her residence in 1942. In 1949 she graduated from the University of Santo Domingo with a degree in philosophy . Between 1946 and 1962, Contreras worked in the Dominican embassy in Paris and as a translator for the French mission in the Dominican Republic. After the death of her father in 1963, she stayed in France for three years, did not resume her diplomatic work in the embassy until 1966 and continued it until 1975.

At the beginning of her literary career, she was inspired by the writer Juan Bosch , who in 1937 also published her stories "Tarde de cristal" and "Los buenos se van" in the Listin Diario newspaper. Three years after these publications, another series of stories followed for another Santo Domingo newspaper, La Información . In 1953 the first collection of short stories was published under the title "Cuatro cuentos" and followed a decade later "El ojo de Dios: cuentos de la clandestinidad". It was not until 25 years after the first publication of short stories, in 1986, that her first and only novel “La tierra está bramando” was published and in 1987 the third volume of short stories with the title “Entre dos silencios” followed.

Some of her stories, such as “La espera”, have been included in national and international literary collections such as El cuento de Santo Domingo , published by Sócrates Nolasco, Combatidas, combativas y combatientes by Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Antología del cuento dominicano by Diógenes Céspedes or Dos siglos de literatura dominicana by José Alcántara Almánzar. She also worked with the Listin Diario and El Caribe newspapers. Despite the relatively small number of works in simple prose, Contreras is one of the most important contemporary storytellers in the Dominican Republic. In 2002 she received the National Prize for Literature, making her the first woman to be awarded this prize.

Contreras was never married and had no children. She died in her hometown in 2006.

Published books

• Doña Endrina de Calatayud (1952)
• Cuatro Cuentos (1953)
• El ojo de Dios: cuentos de la clandestinidad (1962)
• La tierra está bramando (1986)
• Entre dos silencios (1987)
• Facetas de la vida (1993)
• Obras escogidas (to be published)

Web links

• Biography on latinartmuseum.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ List of the winners of the National Prize for Literature. (No longer available online.) In: Escritores dominicanos. Archived from the original on January 21, 2012 ; Retrieved June 17, 2011 (Spanish). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Hilma Contreras Castillo (1913-2006). (No longer available online.) In: Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra . Archived from the original on September 27, 2011 ; Retrieved June 17, 2011 (Spanish). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.