Frida Kahlo and her influence on world literature

On a day like today, a July 6, 1907, was born in Coyoacán, Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter with more than 200 paintings that revolved mainly around her particular and tragic life (She spent long periods of time in bed from polio and an accident).

Transgressive, dramatic and with a strong character, she made herself. Today, it is a clear symbol of feminism, for that self-sufficient sense which she always had, even though she was married (to Diego Rivera, also a painter) and because of that marked society of before where the supremacy of the masculine ruled. This was also continually demonstrated in her paintings, where she painted herself with more masculine features and characteristics (she marked her mustache and frown excessively). She was one of the first painters who dared to break with female stereotypes and give women the possibility of having a new and free image, rejecting traditional conventions.

His personality and his image have been taken to various cultural spheres (music, theater, cinema, ...) but above all it has predominated in the field of literature.

Frida Kahlo and literature

For many years that pass, from his death in 1954, the figure and image of Frida Kahlo has served as inspiration to numerous authors, especially from the world of literature. Below, we name just some of the books that are inspired by the painter or in which we can find her own writings:

«Frida Kahlo's Diary: An Intimate Self-Portrait »

First published in its entirety, the Diary illustrated from Frida Kahlo Reflecting the last ten years of a turbulent life, this document, sometimes passionate, other times surprising and intimate, kept under lock and key for approximately forty years, reveals new features of the complex personality of this outstanding Mexican artist. The 170-page diary, covering the period from 1944 to 1954, collects the thoughts, poems and dreams of Frida, while highlighting the stormy relationship she had with Diego Rivera, who was her husband and the most famous painter in Mexico. The seventy watercolors provide different views of the artist's creative process and, at the same time, show how often she went to her journal to develop the ideas that she would later translate into her canvases.

Sold for about $37,00 approximately (varying euro up, euro down depending on the store).

"The Seven Goats" by Elena Poniatowska

In this book, Elena Poniatowska brings together some splendid portraits of seven essential women in Mexican culture. Among them, of course, is the figure of Frida Kahlo. Drawing on memoirs, interviews, letters, works, critical comments, anecdotes and personal memories, the author outlines the figure and biography of each one of them with agile and moving strokes, herself moved by these “crazy goats”, emblematic women , avant-garde, daring and wounded. In a way, with these seven fertile grandmothers, the author endows us with a host of formidable pioneers, a brightly colored gallery, amusing at times because the adventures of its portrayed are varied and extreme, disturbing at times because none of them led a quiet life and happy. In this strong and vital book, we have Elena Poniatowska in his best style.

It is a book highly valued by those who wanted to read something about Frida.

10 phrases of Frida Kahlo

Frida was one of those women without mincing words and who cared little or nothing what the rest of her thought ... Knowing this, aren't you curious to read some of her sentences?

• "There are some who are born with stars and others with stars, and even if you don't want to believe it, I am one of the most starry ones."
• "I wanted to drown my sorrows in liquor, but the damned learned to swim."
• «Each tick-tock is a second of life that passes, flees, and does not repeat itself. And there is so much intensity in it, so much interest, that the problem is just knowing how to live it. Let each one solve as they can ».
• «Can verbs be invented? I want to tell you one: I love you, so my wings spread enormously to love you without measure ».
• "Walling off your own suffering is risking being devoured from the inside."
• "Mexico is as always, disorganized and given to the devil, it only has the immense beauty of the land and the Indians."
• "And you well know that the sexual attractiveness in women ends flying, and then they have no more what they have in their heads to be able to defend themselves in this filthy life of hell."
• “I used to think that I was the strangest person in the world, but then I thought, there are a lot of people like that in the world, there has to be someone like me, who feels bizarre and damaged in the same way that I feel. I imagine her, and I imagine she must be out there thinking about me too Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this you know that, yes, it is true, I am here, I am as strange as you ».
• "Doctor, if you let me have this tequila, I promise not to drink at my funeral."
• «I would like to give you everything that you would never have had, and even then you would not know how wonderful it is to be able to love you».