María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, better known as
Mama Antula
, was born in Villa Silípica, present-day Santiago del Estero province, in 1730. She died in Buenos Aires, then capital of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, in March 1799.
Its
historical relevance
, extremely important, finds no correlation with its historiographical treatment.
To return her to her rightful place, the Italian Nunzia Locatelli and the Argentine Cintia Suárez -both journalists and writers- published her biography:
Mama Antula.
An empowered woman in colonial Buenos Aires.
The book will be presented this
Sunday
at Stand 3117 of the Ocher Pavilion at the
47th Buenos Aires International Book Fair.
They will be accompanied by the legislator Facundo del Gaiso and they will make a
free delivery
of five thousand copies.
"The book brings as a novelty the link of this valuable woman with the
heroes of May
. This link is evidenced through the letters that she exchanged with Cornelio Saavedra, Azcuénaga and also with Francisco de Uriarte. We were able to gather all this information thanks to the discovery of 300 manuscripts. This corpus focuses on her as
the first writer from the River Plate "
, its authors
tell
Clarín .
Locatelli and Suárez carried out an investigation and recovery of ancient missives, written in different languages and located in the
Archivio di Stato di Roma
.
5 thousand copies will be distributed on Sunday for free at the Book Fair.
For them, talking about Mama Antula is talking about a fighting, brave and revolutionary woman.
Someone who
challenged the masculine norms and stereotypes
of her time to stand up for what she believed to be fair.
At a time when the female sex was confined to the silence of the home, Mama Antula decided to make herself heard.
For that,
she had to confront her family
and, indirectly,
the Pope and the Crown
.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 (due to her political, economic and ideological confrontations with the king), she decided to keep alive the flame of the
Society of Jesus
and her work.
On August 27, 2016, this essential figure was consecrated with beatitude.
This year, a cure is being analyzed in the Vatican, an alleged miracle, which, if confirmed as such, could allow Mama Antula to be declared the
first Argentine saint
.
She was a laywoman, as Pope Francis asks to clarify, since she was not a nun.
His footprint is so important that the Independencia station on Line C of the subway will bear his name.
The House of Spiritual Exercises is located there, built between 1795 and 1810 on his initiative.
It is currently the
oldest colonial building in Buenos Aires.
The authors of this new text have also written other books such as
Descalza.
Mama Antula, the woman who defied the maximum powers
(Ed. Santa María, 2017),
Mama Antula, the most rebellious woman of her time
De ella (Planeta, 2019) and
What have they done?
Juan Pablo I. Conspiracy in the Vatican and Miracle in Argentina
(Catarsis, 2022).
MY
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