She was a woman who wrote in the shadows and who He made a certain literary career under the protection of a pseudonym, Juan Antonio Alvarado.a daring thing in those times. Those times were those between the decades of the 40s and 60s of the last century. It is difficult to find his trail on the Internet and the reason for his refuge, given that he never concealed his identity in a handful of interviews conducted with him. Let’s use the same explanation that the Provincial Library of Bizkaia used when accepting the donation of its work made in 2012 by the Astarloa antiquarian bookstore. That’s what their ad said. “Due to editorial circumstances and the mentality of the time, he published under a male pseudonym, Juan Antonio Alvarado, although At the end of his literary career he published under his original name due to his success and social recognition.”. María Dolores had died four years earlier, in 2008. She had not published for decades.
Most of his work was published by the Escelicer publishing house, within the ‘Library of Exemplary Readings’ collection.
It is not easy to find her date of birth, although it seems agreed that María Dolores was born in Santoña (Santander) and that she soon came to Bilbao, settling on Gardoqui Street, where she apparently settled in an attic where she wrote and maintained a semi-retired life. From the 40s to the 60s she was a prolific writer of novels for young people and sentimental themes.which were published in the Exemplary Readings Library collection of the Escelicer publishing house: Seventeen Years, The Golden Spring, Enrique’s Adventure or José Luis, are some of the titles of the twenty that are known to have been published. Only the last of his novels, There are paths that cross, was published in Santillana on January 1, 1962. The world and a woman, Love in the sea, Storm, Coral, When the city is empty, Sunbeam or Down with the men! These are some of the manuscripts recovered in the aforementioned donation. Is “an example of the post-war Basque literary generation that survived in a hostile and arid environment typical of the Franco dictatorship”reiterated the Provincial Council.
María Dolores’s novels do not stand the test of time and in the literary world they have not achieved any notoriety. They were written in the style of the time, a pastel point. And it is not advisable to forget that The publisher that published him did the same with works by Alfonso Paso, Antonio Buero Vallejo and Tennesseo Williams among others.. From these funds it is known that María Dolores submitted herself to several literary awards under her real identity. And that in 1957, for example, he won the Abril y Mayo award, which was convened by his usual publisher (Escelicer) for the novel The Golden Spring. Although Juan Antonio was a very prolific writer, He did not enjoy any popularity in the literary circles of Bilbao.. It would seem that he was a literary worker but he did have his market. There is little more to tell you about this story.
Let’s look back in time to see that Behind names like George Sand, Fernán Caballero or Víctor Catalá hide female writers who were forced to sign their books with male pseudonyms to combat society’s prejudices. From all of them the chronicler of this page is left with a story. I tell you.
He wrote some cooking treatises, the originals of which were donated to the Provincial Library by the Astarloa antiquarian bookstore.
In France, George Sand was the pseudonym chosen by Amandine Dupin (1804-1886) to sign her books when she began her literary career after her divorce in 1831. The first work she published under her pseudonym was Indiana. But this author of French romanticism also stood out for her political writings. Dupin, who enjoyed great popularity in his time, dressed in masculine clothes to move around the intellectual circles of Paris and to gain access to places only allowed for men.
Belgium
