Elena Poniatowska, Bertram Wolfe y las cartas parisinas a Diego Rivera: biografía, autobiografía y creación literaria

Abstract

This article analyses the thorny issue of combining fact with fiction by further illuminating the subject of literary creation via biographical or historical sources. In order to do so we utilise the example of the novella Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela by Elena Poniatowska. As we delve into this study we consider the differences and similitude between the biography on Diego Rivera by Bertram Wolfe, The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera (a known source of Poniatowska’s novella) that focuses in part on the relationship that Rivera had with this first wife Angelina Beloff and the real letters that the artist wrote to her then husband Diego Rivera. This autobiographical source evidences to the reader that it is possible to recast our image of Angelina Beloff given that another image of her emerges following a detailed reading of the real letters by the Russian artist.