Sunday, March 20, 2011

Writers and Name Changes

There was once a writer called Josefina Rodríguez. She was quite a promising writer and wrote well. Then she got married to another writer whose last name was Aldecoa. So she added her husband's name to her own and became Josefina Rodríguez Aldecoa. Gradually, her personality became even more diluted in her husband's and her own name shrank to a simple R. She was now Josefina R. Aldecoa. As her own self grew smaller, her writing became weaker. Eventually, she dropped the R. and became simply Josefina Aldecoa.


People say that she is the only writer ever who wrote under four different names none of which was a pseudonym. She is also a sad example of how women used to give up on their identities in order to please some guy who couldn't have possibly been worth it.

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