El diecinueve de octubre/October 19th

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Bárbara Jacobs (1947-      )!

Photo from August, 2020 from excelsior.com.mx
Article is about her latest book, a tribute to the
beauty of writing and reading. 

A Mexican writer and translator, Jacobs gained fame with her first book, Las Hojas Muertas (The Dead Leaves), which was published in 1987 and for which she won the prestigious Premio Xavier Villarrutia. Las Hojas Muertas was translated into several languages. The book is the story of her father, Emile Jacobs, the son of a Jewish Libanese immigrant to New York City who covered Moscow as a journalist, fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Lincoln Brigade, which he helped found, and then returned home to serve as a sargeant in the army in the United States. His treatment in the army in the U.S. (he was scrutinized for his liberal views) led him to leave the country and move to Mexico City, where he met and married his wife, Jacobs' mother. A review of Las Hojas Muertas (in English) can be found HERE. Jacobs grew up in Mexico City in a home where five languages were spoken. In this 2018 video interview, she describes writing in her diary at age 12 as the beginning of her literary forays. She attended school in Montral, Quebec, Canada after being expelled from her high school in Mexico (for reading things in English and French that the nuns at her school did not want her to read) and then returned to Mexico to get her degree in psychology from UNAM. She stayed in Mexico to teach and write. Currently married to the artist Vicente Rojo, Jacobs is the widow of the Guatemalan-Honduran-Mexican writer Augusto Monterroso (he has been her teacher, and was 26 years her senior). She has no children. Read her thoughts on her interesting life in this short interview (in Spanish). In the interview, when asked what she is proud of, she answers: De poder escribir mis libros les vaya como les vaya. Cada vez me importa menos la crítica y la difusión, lo que me interesa es escribir y terminar bien. (Of being able to write my books however they turn out. Every day the criticism and popularity of my books is becoming less important to me. What is important to me is writing them and finishing them well). 

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.