Carmen Febres-Cordero de Ballén

Carmen Febres-Cordero de Ballén (1829–1893) was an Ecuadorian writer and poet.^[1][2]

Carmen Febres-Cordero de Ballen

Biography

Carmen Febres-Cordero was born in Guayaquil in 1829.^[a][5][6] She was the daughter of lieutenant colonel Joaquín Francisco Febres Cordero and of Maria de Jesus Montoya. She had four brothers.^[7]

In 1853, she married Aurelio Ballén de Guzmán. They had three children.^[8]

There are few known poems by this author, but they are all said to be of merit.^[9] According to Manuel Gallegos, they were written in her adolescence.^[6] She improvised the verses with a well-measured metric, her talent being well-cultivated.^[5] Examples of her works include, "A mi esposo ausente" (To my absent husband), that Jose Bernardine Suárez considers most notable, "A una flor" (To a flower) and "A mi madre" (To my mother), also quite outstanding, "Himno" (Hymn) and a poem dedicated to her friend Ángela Caamaño, which appeared in several poetic anthologies of the time, such as La guirnalda literaria (The literary garland) (1870) or Parnaso ecuatoriano (1879).^[6][10] In her poems, Febres-Cordero expresses tenderness and passion, but she also succumbs to the weight of disappointments.^[11] She collaborated with various newspapers such as La Esperanza, along with other authors such as Dolores Sucre and Rita Lecumberri,^[12] in the liberal El espejo,^[13] created in 1871, and in the magazine El Álbum in 1880.^[2]

Febres-Cordero settled in Chile at least since 1879,^[6] and died in Valparaíso in 1893.^[5]

A street in the city of Quito is named in her honor.

Notes

1. Other sources indicate that she was born in 1832,^[3] or possibly July 16, 1830.^[4]