Mary Grueso
Mary Grueso Romero (born 16 April 1947) is a Colombian writer, oral storyteller and academic. In 2025 she became the first Afro-Colombian woman to be appointed member of the Colombian Academy of Language.
Career
Grueso was born on 16 April 1947 in Chuare Napi village, Guapi, Cauca Department, Colombia, known for being an afro enclave with a long history of music and oral storytelling.[1] She got interested in poetry while studying at school.[2]
At the age of 28, she began her training as a teacher, registration that was facilitated by her husband, who was a mathematics and physics teacher, and graduated with a degree in Spanish and literature from the University of Quindío, where she specialised in Teaching Literature, and a postgraduate degree in children's literature from the University of Valle.[2][1][3][4] She worked as a teacher for more than thirty years and in 2010 Grueso was recognised as the best teacher in Valle del Cauca thanks to her project using literature to empower Afro-Colombian students.[1][3]
She began writing after the death of her husband in her 30s, which caused her to suffer from severe insomnia.[2] While working as a teacher Grueso also wrote children's stories, whose protagonists and narratives were typical of the Afro-Colombian culture of the Pacific coast of Colombia.[3] Her style is characterised by an oral rhythm and musicality of language, with the use of Afro-Colombian expressions, the recovery of ancestral knowledge from communities in a natural setting, and recurring themes such as black women, community and song.[3] She has also participated in national and international festivals as an oral storyteller.[3][4] Her children's book La muñeca negra (transl. The Black Doll) became her main bestseller.[2]
Grueso was sworn in as member of the Colombian Academy of Language on 11 July 2025 as the first Afro-Colombian woman.[5]
Books
- El otro yo que sí soy yo (transl. The other me that is really me)
- Del baúl de la abuela (transl. From Grandmother's Trunk)
- El mar y tú (transl. The Sea and You)
- Cuentos al calor de la luna (transl. Tales in the Moonlight)
- Mi gente. Poemas afrocolombianos (transl. My People. Afro-Colombian Poems)
- A golpe de tambor y marimba (transl. To the Beat of the Drum and Marimba)
- Agüela se fue la nuna
- El gran susto de Petronila (transl. Petronila's Big Scare)
- Entre panela y confite (transl. Between Panela and Candy)
- La cucarachita Mandinga (transl. The Little Mandinga Cockroach)
- La muñeca negra (transl. The Black Doll)
- La niña en el espejo (transl. The Girl in the Mirror)
References
- ^ a b c "Mary Grueso Romero: la primera poeta afro en ingresar a la Academia Colombiana de la Lengua" [Mary Grueso Romero: the first Afro-Colombian poet to join the Colombian Academy of Language]. Government of Colombia (in Spanish). 9 July 2025. Retrieved 22 February 2026.
- ^ a b c d e Cruz Hoyos, Santiago (5 January 2025). "La historia detrás de Mary Grueso Romero, la primera poeta negra en ser parte de la Academia Colombiana de la Lengua" [The story behind Mary Grueso Romero, the first black poet to be part of the Colombian Academy of Language]. El País (Cali) (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2026.
- ^ a b c d e f Alarcón Reyna, Antonio María (8 July 2025). "Mary Grueso, escritora caucana es la primera voz afro en la Academia Colombiana de la Lengua" [Mary Grueso, a writer from Cauca, is the first Afro-Colombian voice in the Colombian Academy of Language.]. El Liberal de Popayán (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2026.
- ^ a b "La poesia de Mary Grueso Romero: negra palmera, poesía, tambor y mar" [The poetry of Mary Grueso Romero: black palm tree, poetry, drum and sea]. Instituto Cervantes (in Spanish). 2020. Retrieved 22 February 2026.
- ^ Díaz, Daniela (11 July 2025). "Mary Grueso y Bárbara Muelas: la primera vez que una mujer afro y otra indígena llegan a la Academia Colombiana de la Lengua". El País. Archived from the original on 27 July 2025. Retrieved 22 February 2026.