Mary Stanley Low | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 14 May 1912 London, England |
| Died | 9 January 2007 (aged 94) Miami, Florida, US |
| Occupation | political activist, poet, Latin teacher |
| Citizenship | Cuba |
| Genre | Surrealism |
| Notable works | Red Spanish Notebook: the first six months of revolution and the civil war |
| Notable awards | Rubén Martínez Villena Prize |
| Spouse | Juan Breá (m. 1937, died 1941) Armando Machado (m. 1944, died 1982) |
| Children | 3 |
Mary Stanley Low (14 May 1912 – 9 January 2007) was a British and Cuban political activist,Trotskyist,surrealist poet, artist andLatin teacher.[1] She is most known for the bookRed Spanish Notebook: the first six months of revolution and the civil war.
Low was born in 1912 inLondon, England, toAustralian parents.[2] She was educated inFrance andSwitzerland, spokeEnglish,French andSpanish,[3] and travelled with her parents in Europe as a child.[4]
In her early career, Low worked as a Latin teacher, wrote for English magazines and editedClassics Chronicles, a biannual magazine dedicated to the Latin language and the history of Rome.[4]
Low met the Cuban surrealist poet Juan Ramón Breá (1905–1941) in 1933 inParis.[4] They befriended members of the French surrealist movement, such as the painterÓscar Domínguez, the painterWifredo Lam and the poetBenjamin Péret.[5] The couple became lovers and travelled extensively throughout Europe, including trips toPrague,Vienna,Belgrade,Istanbul,Bucharest,Brussels andLondon, and visited Breá's nativeCuba.[4] In 1934, during their visit to Bucharest, they campaigned withVictor Brauner for theRomanian Communist Party.[6]
Low and Breá travelled toBarcelona,[5] in August 1936,[7] following the military uprising against theSpanish Republic in July 1936 and crossed into Spain from Aragon,France.[8] Low had won a considerable sum in aMonaco casino just before travelling to Spain, and put some of it towards the publication ofSpanish Revolution.[5]
During the revolutionary period Low and Breá supported theWorkers' Party of Marxist Unification (Spanish:Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM;Catalan:Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista, POUM).[7] Low enrolled as a militiawoman in the female regiment "Lenin's Column", later known as the 29th Division.[9][10] She worked as an English-language announcer for the POUM radio station in Barcelona,[4] translated POUM publications such asThe Spanish Revolution newspaper into English for international circulation and produced propaganda imagery.[8] She was paid twelve pesetas a day.[5] When she encountered members of the English press, she criticised them for observing rather than participating in the revolutionary struggle and described them as "a poor, grey looking group."[9]
Low and Breá lived in Spain until December 1936 and during these five months Breá was imprisoned twice.[5] Towards the end of their time in Spain, Low observed the "changing aspect" in the atmosphere as revolution began to fade in Catalonia.[11] They both fled back to France when they were threatened with death by Stalinists.[4] Low wrote when leaving Spain, which she called "the centre pivot of the world," that "the regret came up bitter in my mouth."[5] When leaving Spain, she was reluctant to give up her revolver but sent it to a friend inBarcelona.[12]
In England, Low and Breá co-wrote theRed Spanish Notebook: the first six months of revolution and the civil war, published bySecker and Warburg, which was the first English language written testimony and political analysis of the 1936Spanish revolution.[13] Mary wrote her chapters and translated chapters written by Breá into English,[4] and they each signed the chapters that they had written.[12] The book was forwarded by theMarxist historian and criticCyril Lionel Robert James,[14][15] and was praised by the author and journalistGeorge Orwell in a review forTime and Tide magazine.[16] It was reissued in 1979 by City Lights Books, with a new introduction written byEugenio Fernandez Granell.[17]
In the book, Low disputed claims thatmilicianas were mostly concerned with their appearance,[18] recounted the burial of theanarchist leaderBuenaventura Durruti after his death in November 1936,[8] and noted her experiences of the bureaucratic culture of politicians of the Catalan government in contrast to the "egalitarian" mood on the street.[1] Low's chapters also praised the efforts of the POUM Women’s Secretariat in establishing courses for women on the subjects of "socialism, child welfare, French, hygiene, women’s rights, the origin of the religious and family sense" and which taught them "to knit and sew and make flags."[5] She also critiqued the dominance of the male hierarchy in the Spanish political sphere and ensured that the book covered women's perspectives on the revolution, reflecting that "Spanish women were anxious to grab their liberty."[9]
Low and Breá married on 24 September 1937 in London,[19] and lived in Prague from 1938 to early 1940. Here, they befriended Czech surrealists includingToyen, Bohuslav Brouk and Jindřich Heisler.[4] During this period they also co-wrote the French language book of surrealist poetryLa Saison des flûtes, which was released byEditions Surréalistes of Paris.[20]
Low and Breá witnessed the occupation of the streets of Prague byNazi German troops in the early period ofWorld War II. In February 1940, Low and Breá emigrated to Cuba from Europe, after obtaining safe-conduct papers through their acquaintance with a German cultural attaché who was a member of the nobility.[4] Not long after the couple settled in Cuba, Breá died in 1941, aged 35.[13]
After her husband’s death, Low remained in Cuba for almost 25 years.[21] Low gave talks at the Havana Institute of Marxist Culture,[19] taught at the Instituto de El Vedado, theUniversidad de la Habana,[22] and taught English at the Community House.[3] In 1943, she published a selection of political and cultural essays forwarded by her friend Benjamin Péret.[1] Also that year she editedLa Verdad Contemporanea, the first work of surrealist theory published in theCaribbean.[15]
In 1944, Low married for a second time to Armando Machado (1911–1982), a Trotskyist Cuban trade-union leader, gaining Cuban citizenship. She retained her British citizenship, holdingdual nationality. They had three daughters together,[1] Helga, Yoty and Yara.[23] Armando Machado died fromlung cancer in 1982.[24]
In 1954, Low won the Rubén Martínez Villena Prize.[4] She next published the poetry volumeTres voces – Three Voices – Trois Vois in 1957, which was atrilingual book illustrated by José Mijares.[19]
In the 1950s, she supported theCuban revolution by helping and hiding revolutionary militants opposed to theBatista regime in her home.[4] By 1964, Low had become frustrated with what she viewed as theStalinisation ofFidel Castro's Cuban government.[9] Her husband was arrested, although he was quickly released.[4]
In 1964, Low moved to live inAustralia for ten years,[20] before settling inFlorida, United States, where she contributed to the growing American surrealist movement.[13] Low published several works of poetry in America, includingAlive in Spite Of (1981),A voice in Three Mirrors (1984) andWhere the Wolf Sings (1994).[4] She also wrote the historical novelIn Caesar’s Shadow (1975) and produced surrealist collages which were exhibited in Paris,Chicago andMontreal.[20] Low also taught Latin at the private schoolGulliver Academy.[4] She retired from teaching in 2000.[19]
Low remained politically active to the end of her life. In July 1999, she was a signatory of the Manifesto “Combat for History”.[4] In October 2002 she was one of the signatories to the Surrealist-sponsored declaration Poetry Matters: On the Media Persecution ofAmiri Baraka.[19]
She died of congestive heart failure in 2007 inMiami, Florida.[1][19] Her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered in Paris andSantiago de Cuba.[4][6]
