Nellie campobello biography

Biography of Nellie Campobello, Mexican Writer

Nellie Campobello, baptized as Maria Francisca Moya Luna in 1900, grew up in a town ravaged by the Mexican Revolution. The only female novelist of the revolution, Campobello's books incorporated her personal memories and offered a groundbreaking window into the revolution as experienced by women and children. Campobello also made a name for herself as a dancer and choreographer, preserving indigenous dance and directing Mexico's National School of Dance.

Campobello's Name Changes

Rafaela Luna and Jesús Felipe Moya Luna named their daughter Maria Francisca Moya Luna, but she would become known as Nellie Campobello. She reportedly took the name Nellie from a dog owned by her mother. After Campobello's father died in 1914, her mother married Dr. Ernest Stephen Campbell, and Nellie adopted a changed form of her stepfather's last name. Campobello may have changed her name to hide the fact that her mother and father were related to each other as aunt and nephew. Jesús Felipe Moya Luna was the son of Rafaela Luna's sister.

The Campobe

Nellie Campobello's Cartucho and Thoughts During the Beginning of A Pandemic

Nellie Campobello was a dancer, choreographer, and a writer. This practice of observation is evident in Cartucho and her history is inspiring to me as a writer, a dancer (not professional, but I grew up dancing and still do it as a hobby), an artist, and as a Mexican-American/Chicana/person of Mexican decent. I did not learn about Campobello in school, but I am glad I am learning about her now. 

Cartucho was published in 1931. It includes over 50 vignettes describing soldiers and family acquaintances from her perspective — as a young girl surrounded by the war, death, and the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. “Children’s lives, if no one imprisons them, are an uninterrupted film” Campobello writes in My Mother’s Hands, and Cartucho reads almost like a screen play. There are short scenes with subtle enhancements that give you just enough to imagine the rest. 

When describing a man in front of their house in the Chapter The Dead Man, Campobello writes: 

“Look how yellow he is

Nellie Campobello

Mexican ballet dancer

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Campobello and the second or maternal family name is Luna.

Nellie Campobello

BornMaría Francisca Moya Luna
(1900-11-07)November 7, 1900
Villa Ocampo, Durango
DiedJuly 9, 1986(1986-07-09) (aged 85)
Pen nameNellie Francisca Ernestina Campobello Luna
Occupationwriter, dancer, choreographer
NationalityMexican
Genrenovels, poetry
Notable worksCartucho
Children1 son (1919–1921)

Nellie (or Nelly) Francisca Ernestina Campobello Luna (November 7, 1900 – July 9, 1986) was a Mexican writer, notable for having written one of the few chronicles of the Mexican Revolution from a woman's perspective: Cartucho, which chronicles her experience as a young girl in Northern Mexico at the height of the struggle between forces loyal to Pancho Villa and those who followed Venustiano Carranza. She moved to Mexico City in 1923, where she spent the rest of her life and associated with many of the most famous Mexican intellectuals an

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