In
The Polish Lover
, the most recent book by Elena Poniatowska, the Mexican writer and journalist narrates that she feels “wrapped in a shroud of letters
”
and wonders: “Have they made me happy?
Did I make anyone happy with them?
This is how her friend, the anthropologist Martha Lamas, recalled it this Thursday.
During a tribute at the Palace of Fine Arts organized now that Poniatowska has turned 90, Lamas responded from the stage: "Yes, Elena, you have made thousands of us happy and we have also suffered and cried with your little letters."
Poniatowska, Cervantes Prize winner and author of more than 30 novels, essays and short stories, as well as chronicles and interviews, has written about students, seamstresses, peasant women and railway workers.
"Your writing," Lamas summarized, "is a cry of love to our beloved Mexico."
Poniatowska is accompanied by her family, three children and ten grandchildren.
She all in white, white hair, she watches from the front row the tribute prepared by the Ministry of Culture.
Her friends are also there.
The feminist María Teresa Priego, who calls her “a national glory” – “You are an iconic figure despite yourself”–;
the president of the Public Broadcasting System, Jenaro Villamil, who has come on behalf of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – "Elena, like that of Troy, is our torch" – or the actress Jesusa Rodríguez, who has written a song for him that says : “Elenita there is only one and she belongs to our era.
Princess of the tomato, empress of the maguey, countess of the tepalcate”.
Accompanied by her granddaughters, the writer and journalist Elena Poniatowska arrives at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. RODRIGO ARANGUA (AFP)
Poniatowska applauds from her seat. Rodrigo Oropeza
The activist and actress Jesusa Rodriguez participates on stage during the tribute. Rodrigo Oropeza
Poniatowska on stage at the Palace of Fine Arts. Mario Guzmán (EFE)
Elena Poniatowska poses smiling in front of the birthday cake that they prepared for her tribute. Mario Guzmán (EFE)
Poniatowska has published more than 40 books and has been awarded important prizes, such as the Cervantes Prize in 2013. Rodrigo Oropeza
The honoree greets some guests during the event. Rodrigo Oropeza
Elena Poniatowska participates in a selfie during the tribute. Rodrigo Oropeza
The writer sitting in front of the bookstore of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where she greeted the guests and signed one or another book, after the event. Rodrigo Oropeza
When asked a few months ago what she wanted for her birthday, Poniatowska asked that the protagonists of her chronicles and her books be there this Thursday.
And so it has been done: the biologist Antonio Lezcano recites the testimonies of the seamstresses who star in
Nothing, Nobody.
The voices of the tremor,
about the earthquake that left thousands dead in Mexico in 1985;
the writer Bianche Petrich pronounces the words of the activist Rosario Ibarra in
Diary of a hunger strike
;
Ignacia Rodríguez, a political voice, reads her own statements from her book
La noche de Tlatelolco
, in which Poniatowska gathers the testimonies about the repression and massacre of students in 1968.
On stage, during the hour and a half that the tribute lasts, an actress represents Poniatowska herself, young, sitting behind a desk, writing on a typewriter.
"I believe in everything they tell me, they have persuaded me that God loves me and put me on earth to fulfill his designs," the interpreter recites.
It is a text adapted from
The Polish Lover
, the author's most recent work, where she investigates the history of her ancestor Stanislaw Poniatowski, the last king of Poland, and reconstructs her own biography.
"I'm young, I laugh easily, I smile all the time," continues the actress.
Born in Paris in 1932 into a family descended from the Polish aristocracy, Poniatowska arrived in Mexico with her mother and sister at the age of 10.
After the end of the Second World War, her father came and shortly after, in 1947, her brother Jan was born, who died at the age of 21.
The girl learned to speak Spanish, according to what she has told many times, in the street or listening to the people who worked in her house.
“Perhaps the most impressive thing about Elena Poniatowska”, Martha Lamas has said from the lectern, “is the way in which she has been building herself against what her destiny has in store for her”.
"Daughter of aristocrats, she discarded the deceptive greatness associated with this social stratum and people have crowned her in other ways as the red princess," she said.
"In today's political jargon," she added, "she is a
fifi chaira
."
The anthropologist has also recognized that the writer's literature "exudes a sensitive and critical feminism" that "does not idealize women": "She herself embodies a feminist ideal, that of work and being autonomous."
A typewriter sounds, and the actress onstage recites again.
“Working on a newspaper puts anyone on alert.
My parents are subscribed to
Excelsior
.
Mom reads it in the afternoon.
Dad, during breakfast.
I am very lucky.
I call Alfonso Reyes on the phone and ask him for an appointment.
Another to Dolores Reyes.
And another to Diego Rivera.
Nobody refuses”, says the interpreter, and she continues: “My parents think that in a newspaper the name of a woman only appears in a few lines when she is born, when she marries and when she dies.
I earn less than Victorina, our cook, but my enthusiasm, my enthusiasm exceeds hers.
Now I know that my thing is to write.
Since the 1950s, when he first started working for a newspaper, he hasn't stopped writing.
Even today, every Sunday, he publishes in the newspaper
La Jornada
.
His most recognized chronicle is
La noche de Tlatelolco
, a book published in 1971 that the head of the City Government, Claudia Sheinbaum, recalled this Thursday.
“
The night of Tlatelolco
became a tool of struggle and light, a slap in the face in the middle of 1971. A book that showed a repressive regime at a definitive moment in history.
With her publication, Elena became an endearing symbol.
She took the side of the students, bravely and decisively.”
From behind the stage, a group of children enter chanting political slogans.
They are demonstrating as the students did in 1968 in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, in Mexico City.
Then, a shot is heard and the children cover themselves with a cloth marked with red balls like blood.
Poniatowska had also asked for children and there they were.
When the young people return to the stage, they do so by dancing a conga.
One little foot for one side and one for the other.
The young Poniatowska, the actress who personifies her on stage, also dances.
The children leave the sunflowers they were carrying in their hands on a basket and then it is the writer's turn to go on stage.
The real Poniatowska is small next to her lectern, taller than her, and when they bring her a bench to raise her up, she says no to her, that she speaks from one side of her.
"It's very nice to see you, your faces, your affection, the affection of the musicians and of all those who have participated," he says.
He could only thank those who were there and those who were not, his friends he misses: “[Carlos] Monsivais, José Emilio Pacheco.
I am older than them, they should have left later”.
And he continues: “I remember all the friends who have preceded me and maybe they are seeing us, I hope.
Thank you.
It is a very beautiful word, I tell you from here, from the bottom of my heart”.
Then
Las mañanitas
plays, the audience sings standing up and she sways with open arms.
She smiles like a girl who has turned 90 years old.
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