Ana María Martínez Sagi


Ana María Martínez Sagi was a Catalan poet, trade unionist, journalist, feminist and athlete of Republican Spain.

Biography

Martínez Sagi was born into a gentried family of Barcelona, Catalonia. She loved the writer Elisabeth Mulder, but Martínez Sagi's family separated them.
Together with Josefina Carabias, Martínez Sagi was a key journalist of the Republic. She interviewed various people, including beggars, prostitutes, and Catalan politicians. Martínez Sagi's articles focused especially on women's suffrage, a controversial issue at the time. She joined Durruti Column as a journalist during the war. In addition to his journalistic work, she also published several books of poetry. Her desperate and distressed style was similar to that of the Latin American poets Juana de Ibarbourou, Alfonsina Storni, and Gabriela Mistral. After her first book of poetry, Caminos, was published in 1930, Alberto Insúa compared Martínez Sagi to Rosalía de Castro. As a feminist, Martínez Sagi espoused ideas which came from France. She founded the first club of women workers of Barcelona, which worked to improve literacy among women.
A sports enthusiast, Martinez Sagi was a national champion in javelin. Her brother, Armand Martínez Sagi, and cousin, Emilio Sagi Liñán, played for FC Barcelona, and in 1934, she became a Director of FC Barcelona, the first woman to do so in Spanish football's history.
After the end of the Spanish Civil War, Martínez Sagi was exiled to France, where she participated in the Resistance. In 1950, she moved to the US, and, having a degree in French Language and Literature, she was able to teach at the University of Illinois. She returned to Spain in 1975, after the death of Francisco Franco, retiring to private life.

Selected works