alfau

The Spanish writer, Jesusa Alfau Galván spent much of her life overshadowed by her illustrious Dominican grandfather, Don Manuel de Jesús Galván, author of well known novel, Enriquillo. In 1912 at the age of eighteen, she authored the novel Los Débiles, that was published in Spain. Galván moved to the United States in 1916, concentrated on her writing career, and was a contributor to the weekly Las Novedades. A 1930 edition of Los Débiles published by Prentice Hall, was prepared for use as a textbook in intermediate to advance Spanish-language courses. Jesusa began writing her thesis in English for a master of arts degree at the University of Wisconsin, but she died in Mexico in 1943 before completing the project. Her thesis, Nomenclatura de los tejidos españoles del siglo XIII, was translated into Spanish by her nephew, and published in 1969 by the Real Academia de la Lengua Española. Galván’s life and work serves as a precursor to the literary Dominican community in the U.S. in the twenty-first century.