Matilde Cabeza de Vaca de Ortega, known in the literary world as Matilde de Ortega, was an Ecuadorian writer. Her epistolary novel, “Lo que deja la tarde” (1955), is the sixth novel ever authored by a woman in Ecuador and the first by a woman to be published by the House of Ecuadorian Culture (CCE). In his 1976 study entitled, “Amazons and Artists: A Study of Ecuadorian Women’s Prose, ” American literary critic Michael Handelsman described her novel as: “the story of a woman who desires greater freedoms within the traditional framework of female life in Ecuador.” From 1957 to 1959, she served as the director of the CCE’s publishing house. In 1980, a short story by Ortega entitled, “El coche,” was published in an anthology entitled, “Cuentos fantásticos hispanoamericanos.”
Works
Name variations
- Matilde Cabeza de Vaca de Ortega
- CABEZA DE VACA DE ORTEGA, MATILDE
- MATILDE ORTEGA