Imogen Calderwood
GOOGLE is celebrating the birthday of Spanish writer and poet Rosalia de Castro.
The illustration on the search engine’s homepage is in honour of the Galician Romanticist’s 178th birthday.
A strong defender of women’s rights, Castro became an important figure of Spain’s Romantic movement, known today as the Rexurdimento, or Renaissance.
Her image also appeared on the 500 peseta banknote.
She died of cancer of the womb in July 1885, aged just 48.
Galician, not Spanish.
(“Rexurdimento” also being the Galician romantic movement.)
A simple search on Wikipedia brings up:
Rosalia de Castro is today the unquestioned poet laureate of Galicia (Spain). Highly educated, expected to speak and write Spanish only, she took the bold, unconventional step of writing her early poems in the Galician language.