The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Carmela Eulate Sanjurjo was born on August 30, 1871 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and died on July 3rd, 1961, in Barcelona, Spain. She was a poet, writer, translator, musicologist and painter. Eulate Sanjurjo learned eight different languages and translated Cantigas de amor (1920) from Arabic, which led her to become the first Arabist. At age 15, she published her first short story in Revista Puertorriqueña, for which she also translated stories from French into Spanish. Later on, she studied at the Conservatorio de Madrid and graduated as a musicologist.

In 1895, she published her first novel, La muñeca, with a prologue by Manuel Zeno Gandía. She continued writing and publishing short stories and translations from French in magazines such as La Ilustración Puertorriqueña, El Correo de Puerto Rico, Revista de Cuba, Revista Blanca, La Mujer, and El Correo de Ultramar, in which her stories “Dos hermanas” (1892), “En un palco” (1897) and “Uno de tantos” (1893) were published.

Eulate Sanjurjo is considered a pioneer in the Antillean feminist movement, alongside Ana Roque de Duprey. Her feminist stance and advocacy for women’s rights was documented in her literary works and essays: La mujer en la historia (1915), La mujer en el arte: Inspiradoras (1915), La mujer en el arte: creadoras (1915), and La mujer moderna (1924).

Her fiction work includes, La familia de Robredo (Tipografia Heraldo Español, 1907), Desilusión (Editorial Rosas y Espinas,1908), Marqués y marquesa (Ed. A. J. Benítez, 1911), El asombroso doctor Jover (Ediciones Edita, 1930), Las veleidades de Consuelo (Editorial Juventud, 1930), Teresa y María (Talleres Gráficos de la Sociedad General de Publicaciones, Colección Novela Nova,1936), and Ofrenda a Chopin (Guasp, 1946). She published the following translations, Antología de poetas orientales (Ed. Cervantes, 1921), Antología de poetas occidentales (Cervantes, 1921), La quimera (Cervantes, 1936), Franz Schubert y su tiempo (Imp. Núñez, 1941), Los animales y el hombre (Araluce, 1941), Ramayana de Valmiki (Araluce, 1929), and Sakuntalá de Kalidasa (Araluce, 1936).

She translated literary works and writings by Shakespeare, Shelley, Woodworth, Edgar Allan Poe, Keats, D’Annunzio, Carducci, Verlaine, Víctor Hugo, Schiller o Heine, among others. Due to the literary contribution of her Shakespeare translations, she was awarded a member diploma from the Spanish American Atheneum or Hispanic Atheneum, in Washington. Eulate Sanjurjo was also named a member of the Arcadia de la Academia de Roma, the most illustrious European Academy.

Works Consulted

Fernández de Cano, J. R. “Eulate Sanjurjo, Carmela (1871-1961).” Website designed by Micronet S.A., MCNbiografías, -2011, www.mcnbiografias.com/app-bio/do/show?key=eulate-sanjurjo-carmela.

“Eulate Sanjurjo, Carmela.” BiografíasPR, Lexjuris, 1996-2002, www.lexjuris.com/biografias/buscar/search.asp?rec_id=223.

Zero, Ana. “Carmela Eutate Sanjurjo.” Reviewed by Lizette Cabrera Salcedo, Enciclopediapr, 2 agosto 2021, enciclopediapr.org/content/carmela-eutate-sanjurjo/. Originally written 30 April 2012.