DIPLOMATIC POSTS; TRAVELS

 

The period of Gabriela’s travels through Europe and America, of her service in the Chilean Consular Corps, and of her collaboration in cooperative intellectual world organizations dates from her departure from Chile or Mexico in 1922.

In 1924 she left Mexico for the United States where, at the Washington, D. C., Pan American Union, she delivered a speech on the brotherhood of the Americas.This was followed by a visit to several European countries: Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain.In 1926, as a member of the Committee for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, with headquarters in Paris, she took charge of the section of Hispanic-American literature.She published a collection of Hispanic-American classics translated into French in careful critical editions, with prologues, annotations and, in some cases, with glossaries.She was also a member of the Educational Cinematographic Institute of Rome.For a while she lived in Bedarrides, a little town in Provence.Between 1930 and 1931 she visited the United States, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Panamá, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Although the Chilean government appointed her honorary consul in Naples, she was refused the Exequatur by Mussolini because of some anti-Fascist articles she had written.She returned in Puerto Rico in 1933 and taught a course in Hispanic-American literature at the University of Puerto Rico.There she was awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa and delivered the address at the conferral of degrees.The Puerto Rican legislature bestowed upon her the title “adopted daughter of Puerto Rico.”

Between 1934 and 1935 she was in Madrid as an honorary consul, going from there to Lisbon as Consul Vitalicio, second class, with the right to choose her place of residence.In 1937 she visited France, Germany, and Denmark; in August she returned to South America and visited Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Perú, Ecuador, Panamá, and Cuba.Everywhere both intellectuals and the people received her with great enthusiasm when she gave lectures in educational and literry centers.After spending six months in Cuba, she went to Florida and then to Washington.

In December 1938, she was appointed Chilean Consul in Nice, but the European crisis that unleashed World War II made her decide to request transfer to Brazil.

She lived in Brazil from 1939 to 1945, first in Niteroi and later in Petrópolis.Overwhelmed by the suicide of her nephew, Juan Miguel, she left for Europe at the end of 1945.In Stockholm she received the Nobel Prize, and following the reception she visited England, France, and Italy.She was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by the University of Florence and was received in private audience by Pope Pius XII.

She returned to the United States as Chilean Consul in Los Angeles.While in California, she lived first in Monrovia and then in Santa Barbara, in a lovely house with a garden and orchard.Columbia University and the University of California awarded her honorary degrees.Stricken with diabetes she went to Mexico to convalesce at the invitation of President Aleman and was presented with a house and land in Veracruz by the Mexican government.In 1951 she returned to Naples where she received the National Award for Chilean Literature.In 1953 she went to Cuba to take part in the ceremonies of Marti’s centennial celebration.From there she moved to New York as Chilean delegate to the United Nations and participated in the colloquia on the freedom of culture at Columbia University.

The state of her health forced her to resign from her post at the United Nations and to retire to Roslyn Bay, Long Island, where she lived since 1954 in the company of her friend, Doris Dana.

On January 10, 1957, she died of cancer of the pancreas in Hempstead Hospital, Long Island.The funeral services were held in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and her remains moved to Chile, to Montegrande in the Elqui valley, where they now rest.