Magali García Ramis
Encyclopedia
Biography
Magali García Ramis was born in 1946 in SanturceSanturce, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Santurce is a district of San Juan, Puerto Rico.-Summary:Santurce is one of the top ten most populated areas of the island holding Miramar, Loíza, Isla Grande, Barrio Obrero, and Condado as main cultural hot spots for art, music, cuisine, fashion, hotels, technology, multimedia, film, textile and...
, Puerto Rico. She lived all her childhood in this borough of San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
, with her mother, father and brothers, near her mother's family, with close relations with uncles, cousins and her maternal grandmother. Her father worked as a civil servant in Fort Buchanan
Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico
United States Army Garrison Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico is the U.S. Army’s only active military installation in Puerto Rico. Located in the Metropolitan area of San Juan, it serves under the direct control of the Installation Management Command, Southeast Region...
; her mother worked for a while in her sister's laboratory and later stayed home with her children. Her eldest aunt, María Luisa Ramis, was the first woman in Puerto Rico to open a laboratory and all the aunts worked there. García Ramis spent many hours of her childhood in her grandmother's house and in the laboratory.
When García Ramis was a teenager, her family moved to the upscale Miramar section and she and her elder brother had to change schools. She enrolled at the Academia del Perpetuo Socorro
Academia del Perpetuo Socorro
Academia del Perpetuo Socorro was founded in 1921 as a Catholic parochial school pertaining to the Perpetuo Socorro Parish at the Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The school is located in Miramar in Puerto Rico's capital city of San Juan...
(Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help), where she graduated from high school. That school emphasized American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
culture and history, and García Ramis and many classmates, comparing the U.S. and Puerto Rico interpreted all things American as being better than those of the island. García Ramis always struggled with this idea and in college she learned more about Puerto Rican culture. These themes can be found in her literary work.
Education and literary contributions
In 1964 she enrolled at the University of Puerto RicoUniversity of Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico is the state university system of Puerto Rico. The system consists of 11 campuses and has approximately 64,511 students and 5,300 faculty members...
where she majored in History. After graduating, she worked for the newspaper El Mundo
El Mundo (Puerto Rico)
-History:El Mundo was founded in 1919 by Romualdo Real.In 1929, former corrector-turned-administrator Angel Ramos and journalist José Coll Vidal, bought the newspaper when Real retired. In 1946 Ramos was the sole owner of the newspaper.-Acquisitions:...
. In 1968 she received a scholarship and moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to study journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. It is in New York that she writes her first story, "Todos los domingos" ("Every Sunday"). With this story she won first prize in the literary contest of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Athenaeum). She returned to Puerto Rico in 1971 and started to work for the newspaper El Imparcial
El Imparcial
El Imparcial, founded in 1918, was a Puerto Rican newspaper.In the 1970s Miguel A. García Méndez bought the newspaper. The building where the newspaper was run then was destroyed by political sabotage in a fire...
. She worked for the newspaper until 1972. She also worked for a literary magazine called Avance until 1973. During this period she continued to write short stories.
García Ramis sent a book composed of 4 short stories to a contest sponsored by the Casa de las Américas
Casa de las Américas
Casa de las Américas is an organization that was founded by the Cuban Government in April 1959, four months after the Cuban Revolution, for the purpose of developing and extending the socio-cultural relations with the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and the rest of the world...
in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. She received an honorary mention for one of the stories "La viuda de Chencho el Loco" ("The Widow of Chencho, the Mad Man") which was published in 1974. That same year she moved to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. She returned to Puerto Rico in 1977 and published another book of short stories called La familia de todos nosotros. She also started to work for the School of Communications at the University of Puerto Rico. She routinely collaborated in several Puerto Rican newspapers.
She finished her famous semi-autographical novel Felices días, tío Sergio (Happy Days, Uncle Sergio) in 1985; it was published in 1986. In 1988, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
for her second novel, Las horas del Sur (The Hours of the South).
In 1993, García Ramis published La ciudad que me habita (The City that Inhabits Me), a collection of journalistic essays that she wrote while she worked for El Mundo
El Mundo (Puerto Rico)
-History:El Mundo was founded in 1919 by Romualdo Real.In 1929, former corrector-turned-administrator Angel Ramos and journalist José Coll Vidal, bought the newspaper when Real retired. In 1946 Ramos was the sole owner of the newspaper.-Acquisitions:...
, El Imparcial
El Imparcial
El Imparcial, founded in 1918, was a Puerto Rican newspaper.In the 1970s Miguel A. García Méndez bought the newspaper. The building where the newspaper was run then was destroyed by political sabotage in a fire...
, Avance, Claridad
Claridad
Claridad is a Spanish-language weekly newspaper based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was first published in June, 1959. Claridad served as the official publication of the Pro-Independence Movement and later the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. The paper has been praised for its strong political and...
and La Hora
La Hora
La Hora is the newspaper with the most regional editions in Ecuador. It specializes in regional news, and runs a total of 12 regional editions. The headquarters of La Hora are located in Quito....
.
Themes and influences
García Ramis's stories are depictions of Puerto Rican culture, family and politics. She writes about interactions within a family, Puerto Rican identity and women's identity. In her best known novel Happy Days, Uncle Sergio, she explores the relationship between a young Puerto Rican tomboyTomboy
A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of the gender role of a boy, including the wearing of typically masculine-oriented clothes and engaging in games and activities that are often physical in nature, and which are considered in many cultures to be the...
and her uncle, who is rumored to be a homosexual.
Literary works
- La familia de todos nosotros (short story)
- La ciudad que me habita (journalistic essays)
- Las noches de riel de oro (short story)
- Felices días, tío Sergio (novel)
- Las horas del sur (novel)
See also
- List of Puerto Rican writers
- List of Famous Puerto Ricans
- Puerto Rican literature