- Born
- 1 February 1930Ramos Mejía, Argentina
- Died
- 10 January 2011Buenos Aires, Argentina · aged 80
María Elena Walsh
Every Argentine child knows her songs – and her partner of decades was the photographer Sara Facio.
María Elena Walsh grew up near Buenos Aires and published her first book of poems at 17. The Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez invited her to the United States. In the 1950s she lived in Paris and performed Argentine folk songs with the singer Leda Valladares.
Back in Argentina she wrote songs and books for children that are still known to everyone today, such as “Manuelita la tortuga” and “El reino del revés” (The Upside-Down Kingdom). Full of nonsense, wordplay and humour, they treated children as intelligent beings. Her song “Como la cigarra” (Like the Cicada), about surviving and singing again, became an anthem of resistance during the military dictatorship.
In 1979, under the dictatorship, she published the essay “Desventuras en el País-Jardín-de-Infantes” (Misadventures in Kindergarten Country), a courageous attack on censorship that treated adults like children.
For decades she shared her life with the photographer Sara Facio, without ever making a public statement about it; the relationship was nonetheless widely known. She died in Buenos Aires in 2011, aged 80.