Consuelo Saleva, la persona nacional con quien Gabriela Mistral vivió

• In Event: Gabriela Mistral, Puerto Rico y la diáspora caribeña.

Abstract

Mistral first met Consuelo “Coni” Saleva in June 1931. Coni worked as her secretary, nurse and personal assistant. Letters show that Saleva played a role in the significant but overlooked factor of Mistral’s becoming an honorary citizen of Puerto Rico: this directly influencing Mistral’s entering the Chilean consular service. Mistral’s support for Puertorrican independence merits analysis in light of her relation with Connie, as does their relation to Pedro Albizu Campos. Aspects of Coni’s biography relevant to working for Mistral include her expertise with drugs from having worked in her father’s pharmacy, her Northern Italian origins, and Mistral’s considering her to be a “Yankee.” The poet’s breakdown surrounding the death of Juan Miguel Godoy in 1943 impacts of her secretaries, yet the poet’s relationship with Coni uniquely suffers from Mistral’s failure to fairly compensate Coni’s work. Yet Mistral, not Coni regards herself as the victim when the permanent break in relations, never rectified, comes in 1949. In a vindication of Consuelo Saleva, I weigh the poet’s late-life accusations and slanders and explain from multiple forms of evidence, how and why Palma Guillén and Doris Dana plotted against Saleva. I conclude by relating Consuelo Saleva to the other Puerto Rican subjects to whom Mistral also dedicated poems: Elsa Fano, Evaristo Ribera Chevremont, and the promoter Pedro Labarthe. Throughout my study I build on proposals by Arce de Vazquez, Rodríguez Pagan, de Arrigoitia and Fiol-Matta regarding Mistral’s relation to Puerto Rico.

Author

• Elizabeth R Horan, Arizona State University