Virginia Grutter

Vocation

Costa Rican writer, actress and theater director. She was the daughter of Leah Guido Jiménez and Mariano Valenzuela, whom she never knew. Shortly after her birth, her mother married Rolando Graff Grütter, a German who had come to Costa Rica to escape the European crisis of the time. Thereafter Virginia took the surname of her stepfather. The literary production of Virginia Grütter belongs to the so-called generation of the Second Republic, developed mainly since the 1950s This generation opened a new period in the Costa Rican Literature, which was strongly influenced by some historical events as World War II and the Revolution of 48 in Costa Rica. The poetry of this period is characterized by its subjectivity, as well as the quest towards social criticism, erotic themes and transformations own modernity. Grütter's writings away from the traditional metrics, strict verse gives way to a more prosaic and close to everyday language poetry. Making sexual discourse is also evident by scanning the body and eroticism, an aspect that until recently was only in the hands of men. The ideological and political influence, the existential crisis of being modern and the sale of the subject to an increasingly banal world. These themes are held in the two novels which Grütter ventured into the narrative: Friends and wind and disappeared, both stories have a clearly autobiographical stratum. In the first, Grütter speaks about her experiences in Nazi Germany, her life outside of war and how this dehumanizes the individuals. In Missing it exposes the problems occurred during the Chilean dictatorship. This entire text is inspired by the disappearance of her husband Carlos under the military regime of Pinochet. Also, it notes the contribution she had in the Costa Rican drama with the founding of Harlequin Theatre, space representing an important support for the development of the performing arts in Costa Rica. She died on 3 March 2000. Link to Wikipedia biography (Spanish)