Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina OcampoCBE (7 April 1890 – 27 January 1979)[1] was an Argentine writer and intellectual. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazineSur, she was also a writer and critic in her own right and one of the most prominent South American women of her time. Her sister wasSilvina Ocampo, also a writer. She was nominated for theNobel Prize in Literature on1970 and1974.[2]
BornRamona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo inBuenos Aires into a high-society family, she was educated at home by a French governess. She later wrote: "the alphabet-book in which I learned to read was French, as was the hand that taught me to draw those first letters."[3][4]
She is sometimes said to have attended theSorbonne: on page 39 of her biography of Ocampo, Doris Meyer states that, during the family's 1906–1907 trip to Paris, the same during which she was etched byPaul César Helleu, the Ocampos allowed 17-year-old Victoria, "well-chaperoned," to audit some lectures at the Sorbonne and at theCollège de France. She remembered particularly enjoyingHenri Bergson's lectures at the latter. She never matriculated at either. Her old traditional wealthy family frowned on formal education for women, so she had little. In 1912, Ocampo married Bernando de Estrada (also known as Monaco Estrada). The marriage was not happy; the couple separated in 1920, and Ocampo began a long–lasting affair with her husband's cousin Julián Martínez, a diplomat.[5][4]
In Buenos Aires, she was a lynchpin of the intellectual scene of the 1920s and 1930s. Her first book, written in French, wasDe Francesca à Beatrice (c. 1923), a commentary onDante'sDivine Comedy. Other works includeDomingos en Hyde Park;ElHamlet deLaurence Olivier;Emily Brontë (Terra incógnita); a series calledTestimonios (ten volumes);Virginia Woolf, Orlando y Cía;San Isidro;338171 T.E. (Lawrence of Arabia)–a biography ofT. E. Lawrence–and a posthumously published autobiography. There is also an edited book of dialogues between Ocampo andJorge Luis Borges.[4]
Ocampo corresponded withVirginia Woolf throughout 1930s; the two writers met multiple times,[6] and their friendship ended in London in June 1939 when Ocampo invited a photographer friend,Gisele Freund, to take Woolf's picture, who famously disliked appearing in photographs.[7]
In 1935, Ocampo expressed some approval forBenito Mussolini with whom she was granted an interview in March of that year in Rome, hailing him then as a "genius" and Caesar reborn.[9] "I have seen Italy in blossom turn its face towards him."[10] However, she was never a convinced fascist sympathizer, and expressed disapproval of Mussolini's conservative views on gender roles and the regime's growing militarism.[11] By the time her interview with Mussolini was published in August 1936, Italy had invaded Abyssinia and Ocampo appended a note to it declaring that any hope that the fascist regime might improve was lost and criticized those in Argentina who supported Italy's belligerence.[12]
Ocampo was made a member of theArgentine Academy of Letters in 1976. She was the first woman ever admitted to the Academy, and she formally took her seat on 23 June 1977. The "cultural dialog," initiated in 1977 by thede facto government but organized byUNESCO, was held in her home,Villa Ocampo, inSan Isidro,Buenos Aires Province; she eventually donated the house to UNESCO in 1973.[17][18]
Her life was portrayed in a film for TV in 1984 "Four Faces of Victoria", directed by Oscar Barney Finn with four actresses playing the different ages of Victoria (Carola Reyna, Nacha Guevara, Julia von Grolman andChina Zorrilla).[23]
Her attitude and political views were depicted in Monica Ottino's theater playEva and Victoria, an imaginary confrontation between the youngEva Perón and the elderly Victoria. The play ran successfully during the eighties withSoledad Silveyra as Eva andChina Zorrilla as Victoria.[24]
Meyer, Doris:Victoria Ocampo: Against the Wind and the Tide (Texas Pan-American Series paperback,University of Texas Press, reprint edition, 1990). Originally published New York, George Brazillier, 1978. Re-issueISBN0-292-78710-3.
Dyson, Ketaki Kushari:In Your Blossoming Flower Garden: Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 1988; reprinted 1996.ISBN81-260-0174-7.
Bassnett, Susan, 1990 (ed.):Knives and Angels: Women Writers in Latin America. London/New Jersey: Zed Books.
Stephenson, Craig E.:The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C.G. Jung: Writing to the Woman Who Was Everything, Abingdon, New York 2023; ISBN 978-1-032-20955-5
