The Modern Novel

Biography

María Luisa Bombal was born in the Chilean resort town of Viña del Mar in 1910. In 1922 her family moved to Paris after the death of her father and she studied at the Sorbonne, writing her thesis on Prosper Mérimée, though she also studied drama and learned to play the violin. In 1931 she returned to Chile and moved to Buenos Aires in 1933 as a result of the unsettled political situation in Chile. She lived with the poet Pablo Neruda and his wife for a year and Neruda encouraged her to write. Her first stories were published by the influential magazine Sur, which subsequently published her two long stories/short novels, La Ultima niebla (House of Mist) and La amortajada (The Shrouded Woman) . In 1934 she married the Argentinian painter, Jorge Larcos. He died in 1940. In 1944 she moved to the United States, where she married Count Raphael de Saint-Phalle. They had one daughter. She translated her two novels into English and they were published by Farrar, Straus. She only returned to Chile in 1970 after the death of her husband. She died in Chile in 1980.

Books about María Luisa Bombal

Gligo, Agata: María Luisa : sobre la vida de María Luisa Bombal (in Spanish)

Other links

María Luisa Bombal
María Luisa Bombal (in Spanish)
María Luisa Bombal (in Spanish)
María Luisa Bombal Anthes: 1910-1980 (in Spanish)
El mundo mágico de María Luisa Bombal (in Spanish)