What you need to know:
A day like today, but in 1974, the Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos died from an electric shock.
49 years ago, On August 7, 1974, in Tel Aviv, Israel, the Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos died from an electric shock caused by a lamp.. Despite this, many doubt the veracity of this fact, because they believe that it could have been for another reason. Accident or suicide? This is what some still wonder when talking about his death.
first one very short biography: Rosario Castellanos was born in Mexico City on May 25, 1925.but he moved with his family to Chiapas, spending his entire childhood on a farm in Comitán, in an area inhabited by Mayans of the Tzeltal and Tojolabal ethnic groups.
It was here that during his youth he realized the oppression that women lived in those years, because at that time there was a rather macho society (which hasn’t changed much today).
Both the oppression of indigenous people and women would become essential themes in his literature, standing out books such as: balun canan (1957), Real city (1960), Craft of Darkness (1962) and woman who knows latin (1973).
Arrive in Israel
Before becoming an ambassador, Rosario Castellanos studied in 1941 at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).; then he got his master’s degree in 1950 and, thanks to a scholarship, traveled to Madrid to study Aesthetics.
Upon returning to Mexico He taught at Ciudad Universitaria and at the Universidad Iberoamericana. While in the United States, taught at the University of Wisconsin, Indiana and Colorado. He also worked at the Instituto Nacional Indigenista in Chiapas, at the Instituto Chiapaneco, and at the Pen Club of Mexico.
In 1971 she was appointed ambassador to Israel. However, On August 7, 1974, she would die by electrocution at her home in Tel Aviv..
The mysterious death of Rosario Castellanos
Despite the fact that the writer officially died from an electric shock, Since his death, theories have been unleashed that ranged from suicide to possible murder. For example, in the first case, it is believed that this could have happened due to a supposed chronic depression.
albeit, alright to the Watcherher son pointed out that during this stage the poet she was quite happy with her position as ambassador, with her stay in Israel and the classes she taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In this case, Tanya Huntington of Literal Magazineindicates that perhaps this theory could have been generated by a sequence of isolated events: poet – marital problems – sudden death, which were interpreted and given a sense of cause and effect.
On the other hand, the same author points out that the death of Castellanos is handled more like a mystery novel than a solved case, since many times it has been distorted as when doubting the cause of his death or even the place where it occurred, as he mentions David Toscana in Millennium.
What was the death of Rosario Castellanos really like?
The best version of what happened is given to us by a student of the poet, the doctor and writer Samuel Gordon, who in a tribute to the woman from Chiapas, recounted exactly how the death of Rosario Castellanos occurred.
He says that that day he spoke to her and told her that she would not be able to see him because he was going to pick up some embossed bronze tables that he had ordered from Syria. But two and a half hours later, the writer’s driver called her to tell her that she had been in an accident..
Upon arriving at her residence, she had already been transferred to the hospital, where unfortunately she was declared dead.. Then, the driver told her that after going for the tables, she got out of the car barefoot and drenched in sweat, because she already wanted to place them.
Trying to make a space to put one of them, He decided to remove a lamp that was in his way but was poorly insulated, so when he touched it, he received a strong electric shock..
“The driver parked the car in the garage in reverse. It took him several minutes to enter the residence with the tables to receive instructions. Upon entering, he found the terrible scene, with great difficulty with his foot he managed to disconnect the cable, inevitable, ridiculous, incredible. That is why I always deny so many absurd conjectures”says Samuel Gordon.
What are the conclusions?
It is thanks to this narration that we can realize that the death of Rosario Castellanos was not involved in any mystery, it was simply a random accident that can happen to anyone. And as Tanya Huntington says, perhaps that is what seems most inconceivable to us.
What is a fact, a reality and not at all a fiction, is the great legacy left by this Mexican writer with stories and poems that to date are still valid due to the topics it addresses: the oppression of women and indigenous people.
*With information from Literal Magazine, Millennium, The watchman and Etc
