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Collection Overview

Creator:
Mora, Gabriela.
Title:
Gabriela Mora Collection of Elena Garro
Repository:
Manuscripts Division
Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/t435gd03s
Dates:
circa 1940s-1990s (mostly 1974-1980)
Size:
2 boxes and 0.63 linear feet
Storage Note:
  • Firestone Library (scamss): Boxes 1, L-000002
Language:
Spanish; Castilian English

Abstract

The collection includes correspondence to and from Mexican author Elena Garro and Chilean American critic and scholar Gabriela Mora, a handwritten testament by Elena Garro, and photographs of Gabriela Mora, Elena Garro, and Garro's family, friends, and colleagues. Also includes audio recorded interviews of Elena Garro conducted by Gabriela Mora in 1974 and 1979.

Collection Description & Creator Information

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of correspondence (1974-1980) to and from Elena Garro and Gabriela Mora, a handwritten testament by Elena Garro, and numerous photographs of Elena Garro, family, friends, colleagues, and sites. Additionally, the collection includes eight audiocassette taped interviews and readings of Elena Garro conducted by Gabriela Mora in New York, New York in 1974 and Spain in 1979.

Arrangement

Organized in the following series: Series 1: Correspondence, Series 2: Photographs, Series 3: Various Documents, Series 4: Audio Recordings.

Collection Creator Biography:

Mora, Gabriela.

Elena Garro was born in Puebla, Mexico in 1916. She studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) where she was enrolled in the College of Philosophy and Letters. She married the Mexican writer Octavio Paz in 1937. Paz and Garro had one child, a daughter Helena Laura Paz Garro, born in 1939. According to Garro's memoirs, Octavio Paz initiated divorce proceedings with her in 1959, though it was not until some years later that the Mexican government acknowledged the divorce as legal.

In the early 1950s, Elena Garro lived in Bern, Switzerland, where she recuperated from a serious illness and wrote her novel Los recuerdos de porvenir ( Recollection of Things to Come). In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, she oscillated between Paris, Mexico, New York, and back to Paris, remaining there for 23 years before returning to Mexico in the early 1990s. Elena Garro and Helena Paz Garro lived in Cuernavaca until Garro's death in 1998.

Gabriela Mora is a feminist literary critic and author. She is Professor II Emerita at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Rutgers University. She specializes in nineteenth and twentieth century Spanish American literature, modernism, and female writers. Her books include El cuento modernista: Gutiérrez Nájera, Darío, Lugones, and Díaz Rodríguez y Clemente Palma. She lives in New York.

Collection History

Acquisition:

Purchase, 2005 (AM 2005-134).

Gift, 2015 (AM 2016-10).

Additional photographs purchased from Gaspar Rafael Cabrera Hernández via Books from Mexico in April 2021 (AM 2021-085). The photographs were given by Elena Garro to Gabriela Mora, who then gave them to Gaspar Rafael Cabrera Hernández before her death in 2020.

Appraisal

Nothing was removed from the collection during the 2012, 2015, and 2021 processing.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez in September 2015. Original folder inventory by Nicholas Williams '15 in 2012. Finding aid re-written by Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez in September 2015.

Additional photographs were processed by Armando Suárez in July 2021.

Audiovisual materials from this collection were digitized in 2017.

Access & Use

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Audiovisual Materials (Reading Room Access Only): Digital access copies are accessible on a computer in RBSC's reading room. For preservation reasons, physical access to original tapes is restricted.

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:

Gabriela Mora Collection of Elena Garro; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/t435gd03s
Location:
Firestone Library
One Washington Road
Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
(609) 258-3184
Storage Note:
  • Firestone Library (scamss): Boxes 1, L-000002