Winétt de Rokha

Winétt de Rokha
Winétt de Rokha in 1951
Born
Luisa Anabalón Sanderson

(1892-07-07)July 7, 1892
Santiago, Chile
Died(1951-08-07)August 7, 1951
Santiago, Chile
Pen nameWinétt de Rokha, Juana Inés de la Cruz
OccupationPoet
LanguageSpanish (Chilean)
Periodearly 20th Century
Literary movementvanguardista / surrealist / feminist
SpousePablo de Rokha
Childreninclude Carlos de Rokha (poet), José de Rokha (painter), Lukó de Rokha (painter)

Winétt de Rokha was the mid-career pen name of the Chilean poet and writer Luisa Victoria Anabalón Sanderson (July 7, 1892 – August 7, 1951). Born to an upper-middle class Catholic family in Santiago, she published two books by her early twenties under another pseudonym, Juana Inés de la Cruz (the name of the seventeenth century Mexican poet and nun). In 1916, she met and eloped with the poet Pablo de Rokha (who was born Carlos Diaz Loyola). Together they invented her nom de plume. The De Rokha marriage produced nine children, seven of whom survived infancy. The De Rokha family, though touched several times by tragedy, became a famously accomplished Chilean clan.

From the late 1920s through the late 1940s, Winétt de Rokha published four collections of poetry upon which her literary reputation today largely rests: Formas del Sueño (1927), Cantoral (1936), Oniromancia (1943), and El Valle Pierde Su Atmósfera (1949).