Consuelo Berges

Ucieda, Cantabria, 1899 – Madrid, 1988

Independence marked Consuelo Berges from birth. Her parents were not married, and she grew up with her paternal family in the Cantabrian mountains in a house with an enormous library that was her school. She studied teaching and began to write. She went to live in Peru during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. After a brief exile in France after the war, she returned to Madrid, to the internal exile of so many modern women during Francoism. She made a living from translation, a field in which she excelled and to which she devoted herself tirelessly until the end of her days, in her small flat, with its wonderful library, in the Argüelles neighbourhood of Madrid.

Hello...

Wells' "The Immortal Flame" guided my stubborn adherence to the useless pacifist propaganda of the interwar period.

Consuelo Berges recalls in her old age her intensely lived youth. The methods of the ILE had a profound impact on her spirit. Margarita Comas was her teacher. As a true modern woman, all she needed was a Remington typewriter to be sure she could earn a living. With her Remington, she travelled to Peru in 1926 to continue her career in journalism. The young self-taught woman who converted to institucionismoand the translator of French classic novels are one and the same in the Argüelles neighbourhood.

For me, politics, both minor and major, is today, somehow, a matter of conscience.

In the 1930s, back in Spain, Consuelo Berges was not immune to the intense politicisation of her surroundings. She published articles in Santander, lived in Plaza Santa Ana in Madrid, and experienced politics through her writing. She felt drawn to the links between feminism and anarchism, like Federica Montseny. War broke out and she became involved in the magazine Mujeres Libres. She eventually fled to France and lived through the Nazi occupation in Paris.

I live, in secluded obscurity, from the humble craft of translation.

Consuelo Berges' inner exile made her life discreet and humble. Stendhal, Proust and others occupied her days, and she gradually allowed her own literary voice to fall silent. She sees literary translation as a craft that requires skill, perseverance and knowledge. Devoting herself to translation to earn a living does not prevent her from being aware that her own authorship is closeted. That awareness of her drive to write should not be forgotten.