Suarez Clementina 1902 - 1991 (89)
If there are no conditions for an active art scene, it is our duty to create them.
QUOTES
She was born in Juticalpa on May 12, 1902 and attended public school until the fifth grade. In 1923 her father died and Suarez, who from an early age had showed an irreconcilable spirit, she left her village and the rural family home without any financial support or help. Her first destinations were cities where she had relatives who provided her with a place to stay. She lived and worked in various jobs, such as waitress and saleswoman, in Trujillo, La Ceiba, San Pedro, Tela and finally in Tegucicalpa, while at the same time she was writing poems. She had 2 daughters with a man she did not marry and later had 2 marriages, the second with the famous painter Jose Mejia Vides.
Suarez, with both her poetry and her demeanor, scandalized the society of her time as she violated the traditional rules; she raised her children unmarried, wore shorts and a bikini wanting to celebrate her body, dressed strangely and walked around. the streets to sell her poetry collections, spoke publicly about emancipation and women's rights.
In 1932, she gave a series of poetry lectures at the Tegucigalpa National Theater, where she caused a scandal by displaying a naked body. During the period 1936-19377 she was in Cuba wanting to help the revolution, in the 1940s she lived in Mexico as a political exile. In Mexico, Clementine and her second husband opened an art home, on the road to Santa Tecla, one of Central America's most iconic cultural sites, to develop and promote contemporary art that had been drowned out by dictatorships.
In the 1950s, Suarez lived in Salvador, she returned to her homeland in 1958, as a recognized poet. The National University of Honduras published an anthology of her poetry in 1969, and the following year she was awarded a national prize for her work in literature.
She died in the capital of Honduras, Tegucicalpa, in 1991.