Lars, Claudia

Margarita del Carmen Brannon Vega was born in the town of Armenia in Salvador on December 20, 1899. She was the daughter of Irish Peter-Patrick Brannon and Salvador Carmen Vega-Selayandiya. As a child, she was friends with Consuelo Suncin , the future wife of Antoine de Saint-Exupery . She received primary education at home under the guidance of Mercedes Mendoza. Then she studied at the College of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the city of Santa Ana . In adolescence, with the support of General Juan José Cañas , she published a poetry collection, “Sad Mirages” ( Spanish: Tristes mirajes ). In 1919, Margarita fell in love with the Nicaraguan poet Salomon de la Selva , but her parents destroyed their relationship. They sent their daughter to the United States, where she met Leroy Beers , her first husband. In the USA, Margarita taught Spanish at the Berlitz School in Brooklyn .

In 1927, she returned to El Salvador with her husband, who was appointed US Consul in that country. In the same year she gave birth to her only child, the son of Leroy Jr. Birs-Brannon. At home, she made contacts with the intelligentsia of that time, including the writers Salarrue , Alberto Guerra Tigeros , Serafin Kiteno and Alberto Masferrer . In 1933, under the pseudonym Claudia Lars, she wrote the poetry collection Stars in Poso, published in 1934. Her lyrics received recognition from a young audience, for which the poetess read her poems on radio programs. At the same time, she led the Children's Page in the periodical El Diario de Oy .

In 1941, the poem by Claudia Lars “Sonnet of the Archangel” won second place in the competition in Guatemala . In the 1940s, several collections of poetry poems were published. In 1948, while working as a cultural attache at the Embassy of Salvador in Guatemala, she married for the second time to Carlos Samaya-Chinchilla. The couple divorced in 1967. Prior to that, the poetess worked as a peach wrapper in the United States, translated cartoons for the Walt Disney company, and collaborated with Salvadoran anti-fascist periodicals.

Returning to El Salvador in the early 1950s, she worked in the Ministry of Culture , where she led the editorial board of the Culture magazine. During this time, she published collections “Where are the steps” (1953), “School of birds” (1955), “History of truth” (1959) and memoirs “Land of childhood”. Her collections were published in the 1960s, including Between an Angel and a Man, which received the main prize of the second National Culture Contest of El Salvador in 1962. Before her death, she received an honorary doctorate from the Central American University, Jose Simeon Cañas . She was also awarded the highest state award of El Salvador - the Order of Jose Matias Delgado .

Claudia Lars died July 22, 1974 in San Salvador . The last collection of the poetess “Last Poems” was published posthumously in 1976. In 1999, in honor of the centenary of her birth, the National Council for the Culture and Art of El Salvador published two volumes of the poet's works.

• “Stars in El Poso” ( Spanish: Estrellas en el Pozo , 1934)
• “Romances of the North and South” ( Spanish: Romances de Norte y Sur , 1946)
• “Where the steps lead” ( Spanish Donde Llegan los pasos , 1953)
• "Land of childhood" ( Spanish: Tierra de Infancia , 1958)
• The History of Truth ( Spanish: Fábula de una Verdad , 1959)
• “Present in time” ( Spanish: Presencia en el Tiempo , 1960)
• “Sunflower” ( Spanish: Girasol , 1961)
• “Between an angel and a man” ( Spanish: Sobre el ángel y el hombre , 1962)
• “The End of the Dawn” ( Spanish Del fino Amanecer , 1964)
• "Our pulsating world" ( Spanish Nuestro pulsante mundo , 1969)
• “The Last Poems” ( Spanish Poesía última , 1972)

• Selected Poetry of Claudia Lars (Spanish)
• Remembering Claudia Lars (Spanish)
• Passion of Claudia Lars (Spanish)
• Ricardo Lindo recalls Claudio Lars (Spanish)