La Mandrágora

For other uses see Mandragora (disambiguation).

La Mandrágora (Spanish for The Mandrake) was a Chilean Surrealist group "officially founded" on 12 July 1938 by Braulio Arenas (1913-1988), Teófilo Cid and Enrique Gómez Correa ^[1]. The group had met in Talca and first started exchanging in 1932 ^[2]. They published an eponymous review (of which 7 issues were edited at a small scale, the last issue being edited in October 1943 ^[1]) and an anthology of poetry, El A, G, C de la Mandrágora, which included works by all founders except Teófilo Cid. Politically, the group supported the Popular Front.

Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948), who had formed the Creationist literary movement, had been one of the main intermediaries of Surrealist thought in Chile, through his yearly travels to Paris ^[1]. The poet Gonzalo Rojas (1917-2011) was also for a short time member of the group, although he harshly disavowed it years laters ^[3]. Rojas had introduced the young Jorge Cáceres to Braulio Arenas in 1938 ^[1]. Others collaborators to the movement included Cáceres, Ferando Onfray, Gustavo Osorio, Huidobro, Pablo de Rokha, the Venezuelan Juan Sánchez Peláez ^[4], as well as the painters Eugenio Vidaurrázaga and Mario Urzúa, the musicians Renato Jara, Alejandro Gaete and Mario Medina, and the artist Ludwig Zeller, among others ^[1].

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} La Mandrágora article (Spanish)
2. ^ Interview of Braulio Arenas by Stefan Baciu (Entrevista a Braulio Arenas: "La Mandrágora opera con la virtud de una leyenda", por Stefan Baciu) (Spanish)
3. ^ Gonzalo Rojas, “Vallejo era bueno, sabía balbucear", interview in La Republica, 3 August 2008.
4. ^ Sobre el surrealismo hispanoamericano: el fin de las habladurias, by Octavio Paz, on Stefan Baciu's Antología de la poesía surrealista latinoamericana, Joaquín Mortiz, México, 1974.

External links

• Website dedicated to the Mandrágora on the University of Chile's website