Series 1: Writings, 1938-1976
Consists of one folder containing a typescript draft of an untitled short story, undated, 41 pp., by María Rosa Oliver. The Nonfiction subseries contains Oliver's typescript and autograph manuscripts and notes of nonfiction articles, book and film reviews, speeches, conference papers, and sections of her published memoirs. This subseries is divided in two sections, General (1), and Articles, Speeches, and Notes (2). Each section is arranged alphabetically by subject, and, if there are multiple items on the same subject, the items are arranged chronologically within each subject. The manuscripts in the first section consist of her autobiographical writings, some of which can be identified as drafts of her memoirs, and the material in the second section consists of Oliver's nonfiction writings, arranged by subject. The nonfiction articles are in Spanish and English, and were written for a variety of publications in Latin America, Italy, and the United States. The subjects of Oliver's articles include North American novelists, Cuba in the 1960s, Pablo Neruda, the peace organization World Council of Peace, and reports on her visits to China, India, Ceylon, and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s.
This series is arranged into two subseries: Fiction, and Nonfiction.
1. General, 1940-1979
Buenos Aires, Christmas in: article "Navidades porteñas," TMs (carbon), undated6 pp., undated
Carpentier, Alejo: drafts of a book review of El recurso de método," TMs, 197420 pp. (approx.), 1974
Hudson, William H.: notes on Hudson's novel, Far Away and Long Ago TMs, undated7 pp., undated
Isherwood, Christopher: extract from his book, The World in the Evening TMs, undated2 pp., undated
Levi, Carlo: memoir on meeting the Italian novelist Carlo Levi, TMs, circa 19704 pp., circa 1970
Zalamea, Jorge: extracts from a letter titled "Extractos de una carta..." TMs, undated3 pp., undated
This series is arranged in three subseries, the largest of which is the General subseries, consisting of María Rosa Oliver's incoming correspondence and some carbons or photocopies of Oliver's outgoing correspondence, spanning the years 1922-1977The Family Members subseries consists primarily of original letters by María Rosa Oliver to members of her family. The third subseries contains correspondence between individuals other than María Rosa Oliver.
This series is arranged into three subseries: General, Family Members, and Correspondence of Others.
Subseries 2A: General, 1920-1975
A (General), dates not examined
A.L.A. (Agrupación de los Amigos del Libro del Arte en España y América), dates not examined
Aguilar, Paco, dates not examined
Alley, Rewi, dates not examined
Amado, Jorge, dates not examined
Anand, Mulk Raj, dates not examined
"Artigas", dates not examined
B (General), dates not examined
Baeza, Carmen, dates not examined
Baeza, Ricardo, dates not examined
Bautista, Aurora, dates not examined
Belobrova, Vera, dates not examined
Berger, René, dates not examined
Berman, Marcelo, dates not examined
Borges, Norah, dates not examined
C (General), dates not examined
Caillois, Roger, dates not examined
Cano, Coca, dates not examined
Cannon, Mary, dates not examined
Canto, Estela, dates not examined
Canto, Patricio, dates not examined
Casey, Calvert, dates not examined
Chinese People's Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, dates not examined
Cova, Roberto O., dates not examined
Cuadernos Americanos (Jesús Silva Herzog). See also under Cosío Villegas, Daniel, dates not examined
Cuesta, Eugenio, dates not examined
Cuperman, Pedro, dates not examined
Dabini, Attilio, dates not examined
Dawson, Allan, dates not examined
Diehl, Walter, dates not examined
(Dummy folder), dates not examined
E (General), dates not examined
Ehrenburg, Ilya, dates not examined
Fast, Howard, dates not examined
Felton, Monica, dates not examined
Filando, Carla, dates not examined
Frank, Waldo, dates not examined
"Friends from Childhood" (Miscellaneous, identified by first name only), dates not examined
Frontini, Grillo, dates not examined
Frugoni, Cesare, dates not examined
G (General), dates not examined
"Gegè", dates not examined
Ghioldi, Rodolfo, dates not examined
Graal, Giuliano, dates not examined
Granata, María, dates not examined
Gregor, Nora, dates not examined
Guillén, Nicolás, dates not examined
Güiraldes, María, dates not examined
Gunther, John, dates not examined
Guzmán A., Mario, dates not examined
Haden, Allen, dates not examined
Hicks, Philip M., dates not examined
Hudson, Barclay, dates not examined
"Irene", dates not examined
Jouvet, Louis, dates not examined
Kaiser, Georg, dates not examined
Kaplan, Abbott, dates not examined
Korn, Guillermo, dates not examined
Kuo, Mo-jo, dates not examined
Larguía, Susana, dates not examined
Larra, Raúl, dates not examined
Lazarte, Juan, dates not examined
Le Corbusier, dates not examined
Lenin International Peace Prize: Miscellaneous telegrams and postcards, 1958 January-February
Levi, Rino, dates not examined
Levialdi, Andrée, dates not examined
Lohlé, Carlos, dates not examined
Lugné-Poe, dates not examined
Luisi, Paulina, dates not examined
M (General), dates not examined
Macarow, Vera, dates not examined
Mallea, Eduardo, dates not examined
Mallo, Maruja, dates not examined
"María Luisa", dates not examined
Marinello, Juan, dates not examined
Matta, Sergio, dates not examined
Métraux, Alfred, dates not examined
Mujeres de la Argentina, Unión de. See under Unión de Mujeres de Argentina, dates not examined
Nearing, Scott, dates not examined
"Nelly", dates not examined
"Nenucha"(?), dates not examined
Neruda, Pablo, dates not examined
Nin, Anaïs, dates not examined
Nőtanács, Környe, dates not examined
Ocampo, Camilo, dates not examined
Ocampo, Victoria, undated
Ocampo, Victoria, 1960s-1975
Olivari, Nicolás, dates not examined
Onís, Harriet de, dates not examined
Paporov, Yuri N., dates not examined
Peluffo, Valerio, dates not examined
Philipe, Anne, dates not examined
Pigg, George D., dates not examined
Polevoi, Boris, dates not examined
Popkin, Louisa, dates not examined
Premio Internacional Lenin de la Paz. See under Lenin International Peace Prize, dates not examined
Puccini, Dario, dates not examined
Puig, Manuel, dates not examined
R (General), dates not examined
Rajagopal, dates not examined
Rama, Angel, dates not examined
Ranz, Pascual, dates not examined
"Renée", dates not examined
Romero, Elvio, dates not examined
Russak, Mary, dates not examined
Sakai, Kasuya, dates not examined
Sánchez, Adolfo, dates not examined
Saslavsky, Luis, 1920s-1929
Saslavsky, Luis, 1930s
Saslavsky, Luis, 1940s
Saslavsky, Luis, 1950s
Saslavsky, Luis, 1960s-1975
Seghers, Anna, dates not examined
Seki, Akiko, dates not examined
Soto, Luis E., dates not examined
Tainsy, Andrée, dates not examined
Venturelli, José, dates not examined
Vergani(?), Vera, dates not examined
W (General), dates not examined
Weiner, Samuel, dates not examined
Wernek, Moacir, dates not examined
World Council of Peace. Secretariat, Prague, Czechoslovakia. (Borsari, P.), dates not examined
World Council of Peace. Secretariat, Vienna, Austria. (Jones, V. Duncan, et al.), dates not examined
"Yolanda", dates not examined
Zalamea, Jorge, dates not examined
"Zora", dates not examined
Unidentified, dates not examined
[de Bortagaray, Isabel Joaquina Oliver], also known as "Pepina" (sister), dates not examined
This is a small series which consists of documents of María Rosa Oliver, including her will, dated 1975, and several handwritten wills of her mother, María Rita Romero de Oliver. Also contains a few printed cards, invitations for dinners and parties honoring María Rosa Oliver, and one folder financial papers, receipts, and correspondence relating to María Rosa Oliver's government pension and sale of family real estate. The series is arranged alphabetically by subject.
Arranged alphabetically by author.
Contains several drawings by María Rosa Oliver, and drawings of Oliver by artists R. Broussard and Sábat. Oliver's drawings are filed first, followed by the drawings of Oliver by Broussard and Sábat.
Arranged by genre of material.
Contains photographs of María Rosa Oliver spanning her infancy to the 1970s, by various photographers in Argentina, the U.S., and other countries, and photographs of other writers, actors, and friends who were friends of Oliver. In this series, the photographs of María Rosa Oliver and her family members are first, followed by the photographs of Oliver's friends and acquaintances. The photographs of Oliver and her family members are arranged in chronological order, though many photographs are undated, and, thus, the dates are guesses. The photographs of people other than Oliver and her family are arranged alphabetically by the person's surname.
Arranged by subject of photograph.
Oliver, Samuel F. (brother of MRO): three photographs, one includes her sister "Malena.", undated
Four photographs of MRO, 1950s
Atucha [de Llavallol], "Tota": one photograph, inscribed on back by "J.O." or "V.O.", undated
Isherwood, Christopher: two photographs of, including MRO and others, Mar de Plata(?), 1940s
(Empty), undated
This series consists of manuscripts by others, arranged alphabetically by author. Individuals included in this series are Argentine writers Victoria Ocampo, José Bianco, and Raúl González Tuñón, and Argentine-Italian novelist Attilio Dabini. The manuscripts by Bianco and Dabini are on María Rosa Oliver-Bianco's pieces are a short note for Sur, written on the occasion of Oliver winning the Lenin Prize in 1958 and a speech delivered by him at a publication party for Oliver's book Mi fe es el hombre in 1981. Dabini's manuscript is a typescript of the article he wrote on Oliver, published in Enciclopedia de la literatura argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1970).
Arranged alphabetically by author.
This series contains one scrapbook compiled by Oliver, of articles (1934-1947) by and about her, press clippings of Oliver's published fiction and nonfiction, spanning 1918 to the 1960s(?), and printed articles about Oliver (1920s?-1988). The printed material includes short stories by Oliver and reviews of Oliver's books, including Mundo, mi casa, La vida cotidiana, and the posthumously-published Mi fe es el hombre. There is also a photocopy of Geografía Argentina, a book (26 pp.) for children, with text by María Rosa Oliver, published in Buenos Aires, in 1939. The series is arranged with the author's scrapbook first, followed by the printed material by or about Oliver in chronological order. Finally, there is one folder of miscellaneous printed material saved by Oliver, filed at the end.
Not arranged according to any arrangement scheme.
Writings by MRO published in La Nación, 1938 and 1939"El eucalipto" and "El quejido.", 1938, 1939
"Los ojos del liebre" and "Mar," printed copies of short stories by MRO, 1946 and 1960s, 1946, 1960s
Two clippings about the "Junta de la Victoria," La Nación and an unidentified publication, 1941
Press clippings about MRO, 1966-1969
Press clippings about MRO's book La vida cotidiana, published in various publications, 1969, 1970
- Scope and Contents
The María Rosa Oliver Papers consists of writings, correspondence, documents, drawings, photographs, printed material, and papers of others collected by Oliver. The strengths of the collection are the manuscripts by Oliver on a wide range of cultural subjects, covering the 1930s to the 1970s, correspondence with writers and editors of many nationalities, and photographs of Oliver with other cultural figures in Argentina and in her working role for the World Peace Council in the period 1953-1962.
The Writings series contains autograph and typescript drafts of Oliver's nonfiction articles, a small amount of typescript chapters of her published memoirs, and one typescript short story. The Correspondence series contains her correspondence with a wide range of Latin American authors and editors, including over 80 letters or cards by Victoria Ocampo, 23 letters by Eduardo Mallea, 40 letters in English by Waldo Frank, and 11 by prominent American dance promoter Lincoln Kirstein. Other Latin American authors or editors represented in the correspondence are Gabriela Mistral, Miguel Angel Asturias, Alfonso Reyes, José Bianco, Bernardo Kordon, Juan C. Onetti, Gabriel García Márquez, Brazilians Jorge Amado and Vinícius de Moraes, Cubans Roberto Fernández Retamar and Marcia Leiseca de Otero, Mexicans Arnaldo Orfila Reynal and Jesús Silva Herzog, and French authors Roger Caillois, Alfred Métraux, Simone de Beauvoir, and photographer Gisèle Freund. There are also 126 letters by Argentine film director Luis Saslavsky and letters from other political and cultural figures in Argentina, such as Rodolfo Aráoz Alfaro, Gregorio Bermann, and Raimundo Ongaro. The collection also includes correspondence with officers of the World Peace Council at the international and local level, such as the president Frédéric Joliot-Curie, chairman J. D. Bernal, Argentinian Alfredo Varela, Colombians Jorge Regueros Peralta, Jorge Zalamea, and Diego Montaña Cuéllar, and Chilean Olga Poblete.
The correspondence also contains Oliver's personal correspondence with family members, primarily with her mother, María Rita Romero de Oliver, and niece, María Teresa Bortagaray de Testa. There is a small amount of correspondence between other people which includes letters by others to Victoria Ocampo and Spanish authors Rafael Alberti and María Teresa León. The collection also includes Oliver family documents, drawings of and by María Rosa Oliver, and 135 photographs of Oliver from circa 1899 to the 1970s and of her family and friends, such as Victoria Ocampo, Waldo Frank, Lincoln Kirstein, Luis and Dalila Saslavsky, and Mexican actors Cantinflas and Dolores Del Rio. The Papers of Others series includes manuscripts of speeches about Oliver by José Bianco, Norberto Frontini, and Jorge Zalamea, and a manuscript by Raúl González Tuñón, "Cronica de la guerrilla literaria: El movimiento martinfierrista y el grupo del Boedo." There is a substantial amount of printed material of articles, both by and about Oliver, chiefly spanning the years 1934 to 1970. The printed material series includes one scrapbook compiled by the author, reviews of her books, Mundo, mi casa and La vida cotidiana, several posthumous reviews of her book Mi fe es el hombre, and articles about her.
- Collection Creator Biography:
Oliver
María Rosa Lucía Oliver Romero was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 10, 1898. She was the first of eight children born to her parents, Francisco José Oliver and María Rita Romero. Her siblings, in order of their birth, are Isabel Joaquina, Julia, Francisco J., Juan Pablo, Luis Ramón, Magdalena, and Samuel F. As documented in her memoirs, Mundo, mi casa, María Rosa Oliver had a normal childhood until she contracted polio at the age of ten. With the assistance of a Swedish physiotherapist, Olga Carlsson, she began a recuperation during which she developed a love of reading and drawing. In the late 1910s, Oliver began publishing journalism in magazines in Buenos Aires. Though confined to a wheelchair, Oliver travelled widely throughout her life. She travelled with her family in Europe in 1921, throughout Latin America, through much of the United States on lecture tours while working in the U.S. in the years 1942-1946, and to China, the Soviet Union, and other countries as part of her work for the World Peace Council (Consejo Mundial de la Paz) in the period 1948-1962. In her work for the World Peace Council, an international peace organization, Oliver served as a vice-president and an advisor to the directorial board of the council. The World Peace Council was formed after the convocation of several peace congresses in Europe: a congress held in Wroclaw, Poland, in 1948, and congresses held in Paris and Prague in 1949. During 1942-1946, at the invitation of the Roosevelt Administration, Oliver worked in Washington, D.C., as Special Coordinator in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.
In the 1920s and 1930s, María Rosa Oliver met writers and artists active with the association "Amigos del Arte" in Buenos Aires. During this period, the city of Buenos Aires was home to writers and intellectuals from around the world, many of whom were fleeing Nazism in France and Germany. She became a friend and colleague of Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979), the founder of Sur, a literary magazine published in Buenos Aires, and was a member of Sur's editorial board (Comité de Colaboración) from the magazine's inception in 1931. Though they had disagreements over politics (see the letters in the collection, dated 1958 and 1961), Oliver and Ocampo were lifelong friends, and Oliver made many visits, especially in the 1930s, to Victoria Ocampo's house, "Villa Victoria," in San Isidro, Buenos Aires; there she met and became friends with Eduardo Mallea, novelist, critic, and literary editor of La Nación in Buenos Aires, and Waldo Frank, the American novelist and critic who was a popular figure in Latin America for his book America Hispana and other writings. Oliver was also friends with other cultural figures, such as Mexican author and diplomat Alfonso Reyes, French writer Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, and Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca. Oliver's memoirs, La vida cotidiana and Mi fe es el hombre, document this period of her life. She was also a close friend of Luis Saslavksy and his sister, Dalila Saslavsky. Luis Saslavsky was an Argentine film director who excelled in creating movies depicting fin-de-siècle Argentina.
María Rosa Oliver grew up in a home in Buenos Aires at Charcas 628, which is described in detail in her memoirs. She also lived some years with her mother on a small farm in Merlo, a town outside of Buenos Aires. Eventually, Oliver returned to Buenos Aires to live. After her mother's death in 1962, Oliver lived with two of her married brothers and sisters. She also had an attendant for many years, Josefa "Pepa" Freire, who accompanied Oliver on many trips to Europe, the Soviet Union, and other countries. The presence of María Rosa Oliver, with Pepa Freire pushing her wheelchair, became a well-known sight at conferences of the World Peace Council and other organizations. María Rosa Oliver died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 78 on April 19, 1977.
María Rosa Oliver was widely admired for her courage in the face of her physical disability, for her kindness and interest in people from all walks of life, and for her ability to transform the circumstances of her disability into a life of personal, political, and cultural engagement. She is mentioned several times in Simone de Beauvoir's memoirs, and Oliver, herself, wrote memoirs which critics have praised for the quality of her observations and literary style. Mundo, mi casa, in particular, has been described as a sympathetic evocation of life in Argentina at the start of the century, depicting a society long since changed.
The noted Argentine critic, Pedro Orgambide, wrote in the magazine Entre Todos in 1988, " María Rosa Oliver escribió centenares de artículos, notas críticas, ensayos y se acercó a la ficción a través del cuento....Pero su aporte singular a nuestra literatura, queda en sus libros de memorias, un género que ella cultivó con extrema sinceridad, con pasión y con un estilo muy sobrio y muy bello al mismo tiempo." (María Rosa Oliver wrote hundreds of articles, critical notes, and essays, and she approached fiction through short stories.... But her singular contribution to our literature rests in her books of memoirs, a genre which she cultivated with the utmost sincerity, with passion, and with a style very sober and very beautiful at the same time.)
Major publications include: Geografía Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1939); with co-author Norberto A. Frontini, Lo que sabemos, hablamos. Testimonios sobre la China de hoy (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Botella al mar, 1965); Mundo, mi casa (Buenos Aires: Falbo Librero Editor, 1965); La vida cotidiana (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1969); Mi fe es el hombre (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Carlos Lohlé, 1981).
- Acquisition:
The collection was purchased from the author's family in 1997.
- Appraisal
No appraisal information is available.
- Processing Information
This collection was processed by Claire A. Johnston in 1998. Finding aid written by Claire A. Johnston in 1998.
- Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
- Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
- Credit this material:
María Rosa Oliver Papers; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/wh246s162
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- Firestone Library (scamss): Box 1-9
- Subject Terms:
- Argentine essays. -- 20th century
Argentine literature. -- 20th century
Authors, Latin American -- 20th century -- Political and social views.
Critics -- Argentina. -- 20th century -- Correspondence
Intellectuals -- Latin America. -- 20th century -- Correspondence
Latin American literature. -- 20th century
Novelists, Latin American. -- 20th century -- Correspondence
Peace movements -- Congresses.
Peace movements -- Europe. -- 20th century
Peace movements -- Latin America. -- 20th century
Poets, Latin American. -- 20th century -- Correspondence
Politics and culture -- Latin America. -- 20th century
Women authors, Latin American. -- 20th century -- Correspondence - Genre Terms:
- Autobiographies.
Clippings.
Correspondence
Drawings.
Manuscripts.
Photographs, Original. - Names:
- World Peace Council.
Oliver family
Frank, Waldo David (1889-1967)
Mallea, Eduardo (1903-1982)
Mistral, Gabriela (1889-1957)
Ocampo, Victoria (1890-1979)
Oliver, María Rosa (1898-1977)
Saslavsky, Luis (1908)
Saslavsky, Luis (1908) - Places:
- Argentina -- Intellectual life. -- 20th century
Buenos Aires (Argentina) -- Intellectual life. -- 20th century
Latin America -- Intellectual life. -- 20th century