Marilar Aleixandre


María Pilar Jiménez Aleixandre is a Spanish writer, translator and biologist. She lives in Amaía, Galicia, Spain. In her own words:

I use the Galician Language as a literary language because I have a forked tongue, however not all the creatures with a forked tongue are bad. I think that all stories and poems are messages written in ink, spittle or blood, that we throw into space wishing that somebody receives them.

Life and career

The grandparents of Marilar Aleixandre were from Andalucia, Valencia and Madrid. She was born in Madrid in 1947 and has lived in Ceuta and Doña Mencía. She has resided in Galicia since 1973 and has adopted the Galician language as her literary language. She is now one of the most famous Galician language writers. In her own words:

I remember some things of every city where I lived: Ceuta ; Doña Mencía ; Madrid ; Vigo ; Santiago de Compostela...and other cities where I never lived or where I only lived for a short time: Donostia, Perugia, Boston. And I have a special relationship with Toba, Cée and with a Costa da Morte.

She is a lecturer of Biology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where she has been teaching Environmental and Science Education since 1988.
Her first story was Un Conto Sobre Vampiros, followed by Agardando polos morcegos. She then published her first children's book A formiga coxa, and A expedición do Pacífico.
She was finalist of the Premio Xerais de Novela in 1992, with Tránsito dos Gramáticos. In 1996 she published the book of stories Lobos nas illas about the difficulty of family relationships, in 1988 the novel A Compañía Clandestina de Contrapublicidade, and in 2001 Teoría do Caos. The majority of her works are translated to Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Basque.
She has translated the collection of poems Muller ceiba by Sandra Cisneros from English to Galician, as well as A Caza do Carbairán by Lewis Carroll and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling. She has also written the screenplay of 14 episodes of Os escachapedras.
She has taken part in several collective publications of poetry and in the activities of the Batallón Literario da Costa da Morte. In 1998 she won the Award Esquío with the collection of poems Catálogo de velenos. Besides this, she has contributed to the culture and literature magazines Nó, Luzes de Galicia, CLIJ, Festa da Palabra Silenciada, Dorna and El Signo del Gorrión. She also publishes academic works on teaching science.
Aleixandre has been quoted as saying that: Writing allows us to invite people into the worlds that we have imagined.

Works

Literary