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María Zambrano

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In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Zambrano and the second or maternal family name is Alarcón.

María Zambrano
Image
María Zambrano in Madrid in the 1930s
Born
María Zambrano Alarcón

(1904-04-22)22 April 1904
Vélez-Málaga, Málaga, Spain
Died6 February 1991(1991-02-06) (aged 86)
Madrid, Spain
Resting place
Cemetery of Vélez-Málaga
Citizenship
  • Spain
  • (exiled 1939–1984)
Spouse
Alfonso Rodriguez Aldave
​
​
(m. 1936; div. 1957)​
Awards
Education
EducationCentral University of Madrid, Instituto Mariano Quintanilla
Philosophical work
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
List
Institutions
Main interests
Political philosophy, philosophy of literature, philosophy of religion, epistemology, ontology, metaphysics, poetry, theory of reason
Signature
Image

María Zambrano Alarcón (April 22, 1904 – February 6, 1991) was a Spanish philosopher, intellectual, and essayist. Her extensive work between poetic reflection and civic engagement was not recognized in Spain until the last quarter of the 20th century, after a nearly 45-year-long exile. In 1988, Zambrano became the first woman to receive the Premio Cervantes, the highest literary honor in the Spanish-speaking world. [1] She is increasingly regarded as one of the most important voices of the 20th century, [2][3][4][5][6]and Spanish scholarship often places her alongside thinkers such as Simone Weil[7][8][9] and Hannah Arendt, [10][11][12][13][14] as well as her close friend and contemporary Rosa Chacel.

Zambrano's works engage with a broad range of topics, including philosophy, poetry, [15] democratic theory, [16] liberalism, [17] humanism, and education [18]. She also returned repeatedly to the figure of Antigone, [19] exile, memory, time, religion, nature, artistic imagination, and dreams. Her writing style is distinctive, characterized by symbolism, metaphor, and an idiosyncratic, spiral-like structure. [20] She is best known for developing a unique concept of “poetic reason” [21][22][23][24]: an attempt to transcend the limiting coordinates of Enlightenment rationality by reintegrating dimensions of human experience marginalized by modernity — poetry, imagination, emotion, intuition, interiority, and dreams — into a richer, more expansive conception of reason. [25] Zambrano's legacy is reflected in the many journals,[26] seminars,[27][28] professorships, libraries, scholarly prizes,[29] schools, streets, and monuments that bear her name across Spain, Europe and Latin America, as well as in the María Zambrano Foundation, a research institute and cultural center in Spain which contains her complete archive and library.[30]

María Zambrano was born on April 22, 1904, in Vélez-Málaga, a small town in southern Spain, the daughter of two schoolteachers. [31] She studied philosophy at the Central University of Madrid, where in the 1920s and 30s she became a close student and collaborator of the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, joining the intellectual circles of the Revista de Occidente and the Generation of 1927. [32] Zambrano participated in the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939) — Spain's first attempt at modern democracy, contributed to educational initiatives such as the "Misiones Pedagógicas", a program to bring arts and literacy to rural communities, and published articles on liberalism, education, and the role of women in society. [33] [34]

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), Zambrano worked in Valencia organizing the evacuation of orphaned children from war zones, writing and editing the newspaper Hora de España, and coordinating the participation of intellectuals in the defense of the Republic. At the end of the war and beginning of the Franco dictatorship in 1939, Zambrano crossed the Pyrenees into exile among half a million refugees, drafting her book Philosophy and Poetry on scraps of paper as she went. Her exile would last over forty years, taking her through Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Rome, and France, marked by significant hardship and financial difficulty. Yet, everywhere she went, she wrote prolifically and integrated into circles of writers, poets, and intellectuals. In total, Zambrano wrote over twenty books, hundreds of essays, journals, articles and poems, and exchanged 5,000 letters with correspondents across the world. [35] Her years of exile produced major works including Delirium and Destiny: A Spaniard in Her Twenties, Person and Democracy, The Tomb of Antigone, and Clearings in the Forest. She returned Spain in 1984, and in the following years much of her work was recovered and began to receive serious recognition. Zambrano received the Premio Cervantes in 1988 and died in Madrid on February 6, 1991.

Biography

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Early Life and Education (1904–1931)

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María Zambrano was born on April 22, 1904 in Vélez-Málaga, Spain, a small town on the Mediterranean. Both of her parents, Blas Zambrano and Araceli Alarcón, and her paternal grandfather were public school teachers. [36]. In 1908, the family moved to Madrid and a year afterwards to nearby Segovia, where her father taught and collaborated closely with the poet Antonio Machado in the Universidad Popular de Segovia, a project aimed at extending education and culture to those who lacked access to it. [37] It was during these early years, as Zambrano recalls in an essay "The book: a living being," that she first discovered books in her father's study and, enchanted, quietly began “stealing” them away for herself. [38] In 1911, Zambrano’s younger sister Araceli, a central figure in her life, was born in Segovia. [39]

In an autobiographical essay, Zambrano remembers a childhood shaped by restless imaginative vocation and an early longing to become something beyond the roles available to her. [40] First, she writes, she dreamed of becoming a music box: as a young child, she had been given one, and it seemed to her miraculous that simply lifting the lid could release music into the air. But, she came to understand that the music it played, however much she loved it, was not her own, and so: “I would have to be a music box of my own music, of the music of my footsteps, of my actions." [41] Later, fascinated by the Knights Templar in Segovia, Zambrano hoped to become a knight, only to be told that, because she was a girl, she could never be a knight. She wanted to reconcile both identities at once: "I wanted to be a knight and I did not want to stop being a woman." [42] Next, she dreamed of becoming a "sentinel of the night" after hearing the guards of Segovia call out, "Sentinel alert!" at nighttime — a fascination she later linked to her lifelong affinity for the night, for the silent, secret hours where most of her future writing would take shape. [43] Eventually, Zambrano writes, she discovered philosophy itself: "I found thought; I found what I called — and still call — 'Philosophy.'" [44] Yet, even philosophy initially seemed out of reach: after her father told her about the inscription above Plato's Academy — "Let no one enter here who does not know Geometry" — she repeatedly asked him, "So when are you going to teach me Geometry?" "And what for?" he replied. "Because I need to think!" [45]

This was an appetite that would shape Zambrano’s future. In 1913, she began her secondary education at the Instituto Nacional de Segovia, where she was one of only a few female students in her class. [46] In 1924, the family moved back to Madrid, where she enrolled in the department of Philosophy and Letters at the Central University of Madrid, and was taught by the philosophers José Ortega y Gasset and Xavier Zubiri. [47] In 1927, Zambrano was invited to meetings of the Revista de Occidente, one of the country's most important intellectual forums, and found herself at home among the writers and artists of the Generation of '27. [48] In these years, Spain was caught between old traditions and rapid modernization, and Zambrano herself moved freely between inherited philosophical forms and new ones of her own making.

In 1928, Zambrano began PhD studies in philosophy, focusing on Spinoza, and joined the Federación Universitaria Escolar (FUE), a student movement opposing the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. In these years, she studied Spinoza, Kant, Plato, Dante, Bergson, and Nietzsche, among others, participated in founding the “League of Social Education” and taught philosophy at the Instituto Escuela and in the Central University of Madrid. [49] Although Zambrano’s activities were at times interrupted by fragile health, most severely, a case of tuberculosis, she remained hard at work on her first articles and essays, beginning to develop the voice, at once philosophically rigorous and intimately lyrical, that would come to define her. During these years, Zambrano wrote in Madrid newspapers, “Libertad” “El Liberal” and “Nueva España” on topics including the university, education, youth, and the changing role of women in Spanish society. [50] In 1930, Zambrano published her first book: The Horizon of Liberalism.


Philosophy

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María Zambrano's thought is characterized by a profound effort to reconcile philosophical reason with human lived experience. She critiques the rationalist tradition within Western philosophy, which, in her view, had neglected essential dimensions of human existence, such as emotion, imagination, intuition, poetry, and dreams. Some of Zambrano's most important philosophical influences and interlocutors include Plato, Aristotle, the pre-Socratics, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Husserl and Ortega y Gasset.

Zambrano's most famous contribution to the history of ideas is a philosophical method called "poetic reason," which draws from a double root in the Greek logos (reason) and poiesis (creation). Through poetic reason, Zambrano does not reject rationality but rather, aims to expand it. The seminal text for poetic reason is Zambrano's book Claros del bosque [Forest clearings].

Another central aspect of her thought is the search for identity and being, particularly through the experience of exile, which marked her own life. Exile, in Zambrano's philosophy, becomes not only a historical condition but also an ontological human state of being always in transit, in search of one's place. Zambrano explores the theme of exile in her 1967 book, The Tomb of Antigone [La tumba de Antígona], a philosophical-literary reimagination of the figure of Antigone.

In her political theory, Zambrano writes on democracy and liberalism. She critiques liberalism when it becomes an abstract system of rights detached from human life and ethical responsibility, and in her 1930 book The Horizon of Liberalism [Horizonte del liberalismo] searches for a "new horizon" for liberalism. In her 1958 book Persona y democracia [Person and Democracy], she searches for an ethical foundation for democracy, defining it as a society in which one must truly be a person—a being recognized in their dignity, responsibility, and relational existence. For Zambrano, democracy is not only political organization but also a collective project rooted in ethical engagement.

Recognition

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Due to her long exile, Zambrano's genius was slow to be recognized. In Spain, due to the environment of the Franco regime, it was not until 1966 that one of the first articles on Zambrano was published: J. L. Aranguren's article "Los sueños de María Zambrano" (The Dreams of María Zambrano) in the important cultural and scientific Revista de Occidente, founded by Ortega y Gasset, a review to which leading contemporary philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and Edmund Husserl contributed.

In 1981, Zambrano was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities in its first edition, and in 1983 Malaga University named her Doctor honoris causa.

In 1988, Zambrano became the first woman to be awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the highest literary honor in the Spanish language.

María querida (Dearest Maria), a film directed by José Luis García Sánchez in 2004, is about her life.

In December 2007, when the Madrid-Málaga high-speed rail line was opened, railway company RENFE renamed Málaga railway station María Zambrano. Likewise, the central library of her alma mater, the Complutense University of Madrid was named after her. In 2017 the Segovia City Council unanimously approved to declare her an adopted daughter of the city. The campus of the Universidad of Valladolid in Segovia is named after her as well.

Bibliography

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Library resources about
María Zambrano
By María Zambrano

This bibliography focuses on works available in English. For Zambrano's complete primary texts, see the Cervantes Institute catalogue and her Obras completas (Galaxia Gutenberg). For a more extensive primary and secondary bibliography, see the Spanish-language version of this article. The majority of Zambrano's work has not yet been translated into English, and scholarship on her in English remains limited.

Primary texts translated into English

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  • Zambrano, María. Delirium and Destiny: A Spaniard in Her Twenties. Translated by Carol Maier. Commentary by Roberta Johnson. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. [Translation of Delirio y destino, written 1953, published 1989]
  • Zambrano, María. Antigone's Tomb / La tumba de Antígona. Translated by Clare Nimmo. Aris & Phillips Hispanic Classics. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2025. [Translation of La tumba de Antígona, 1967]
  • Zambrano, María. Two Confessions. Zambrano's essay translated by Noël Valis; Rosa Chacel's essay translated by Carol Maier. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015. [Translation of La confesión: género literario]

Translated excerpts

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  • Balibrea, Mari Paz, Francis Lough, and Antolín Sánchez Cuervo, eds. "María Zambrano amongst the Philosophers." Special issue of History of European Ideas 44, no. 7 (2018). [Includes translated anthology of Zambrano's texts alongside critical essays]
  • Zambrano, María. "Two Essays on Ruins." Translated by José María Rodríguez García. Modernist Cultures 7, no. 1 (2012): 98–131.

Doctoral dissertations

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  • Cyganiak, Sarah J. "The Method of María Zambrano: An Analysis and Translated Selection of Essays Centered on the Concepts of the Word, the Person, Compassion and Love." PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2011.
  • Demeuse, Sarah. "Aesthetic Theory in 20th-Century Spain: 'Style' in José Ortega y Gasset, María Zambrano and Eugenio d'Ors." PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2004.
  • Guerrero Quintana, M. A. "Corazonar with/in María Zambrano: Insights into Crisis, Heart, and Hope." PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2020.
  • Mollica, Veronica. "Out of Isolation: Life Writing in María Zambrano, Rosa Chacel and Felicidad Blanc." PhD diss., Queen's University Belfast, 2022.
  • Nimmo, Clare Elizabeth. "La razón poética in the Works of María Zambrano." PhD diss., Durham University, 1994.

Secondary literature

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Books

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  • Caballero Rodríguez, Beatriz. María Zambrano: A Life of Poetic Reason and Political Commitment. Iberian and Latin American Studies. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017.
  • Cámara, Madeleine, and Luis Ortega Hurtado, eds. María Zambrano: Between the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. A Bilingual Anthology. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2015.
  • Enquist Källgren, Karolina. María Zambrano's Ontology of Exile: Expressive Subjectivity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
  • Moreno, Hugo. Rethinking Philosophy with Borges, Zambrano, Paz, and Plato. Continental Philosophy and the History of Thought. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022.
  • Ros, Xon de, and Daniela Omlor, eds. The Cultural Legacy of María Zambrano. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 24. Cambridge: Legenda/MHRA, 2017.

Journal articles and book chapters

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  • Bush, Andrew. "María Zambrano and the Survival of Antigone." Diacritics 34, nos. 3–4 (2004): 90–111.
  • Caballero Rodríguez, Beatriz. "Zambrano's Poetic Reason in the Light of Frankfurtian Critical Theory." History of European Ideas 44, no. 7 (2018): 887–898.
  • Enquist Källgren, Karolina. "María Zambrano's Theory of Subjectivity and Modal Ontology." History of European Ideas 44, no. 7 (2018): 843–852.
  • Enquist Källgren, Karolina, and Íngrid Vendrell Ferran. "Scheler and Zambrano: On a Transformation of the Heart in Spanish Philosophy." History of European Ideas 48, no. 5 (2022): 634–649.
  • Johnson, Roberta. "María Zambrano's and Albert Camus's Communal Ethics." History of European Ideas 44, no. 7 (2018): 876–886.
  • Palomar, Patricia. "The Reader of Confession in María Zambrano." History of European Ideas 44, no. 7 (2018): 853–863.
  • Special Issue: María Zambrano In Dialogue. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 16, no. 4.

References

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  1. ^ "Spanish Ministry of Culture: Cervantes Prize". Ministerio de Cultura (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  2. ^ "Biografía de María Zambrano". Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  3. ^ Montes Sampedro, María Teresa (2017). María Zambrano: la Antígona española del siglo XX (in Spanish). Ediciones Endymion.
  4. ^ Arroyo Serrano, Santiago (2020). "María Zambrano. La pervivencia de su pensamiento, hoy". Monograma. Revista iberoamericana de cultura y pensamiento (in Spanish). 7: 9–17.
  5. ^ Mora García, José Luis; Ortega Hurtado, Luis (2025). Continuidad y vigencia: sus tiempos, el nuestro (in Spanish). Fundación María Zambrano.
  6. ^ Abellán, José Luis (2006). María Zambrano: una pensadora de nuestro tiempo (in Spanish). Vol. 21. Anthropos Editorial.
  7. ^ Rius Gatell, Rosa (2013). "María Zambrano y Simone Weil: notas para un diálogo". Palabra liberada del lenguaje: María Zambrano y el pensamiento contemporáneo. Filosofía política (in Spanish). Vol. 4. pp. 163–177.
  8. ^ Tommasi, Wanda (2002). "Pensar por imágenes: Simone Weil y María Zambrano". Aurora. Papeles del Seminario María Zambrano (in Spanish). 4.
  9. ^ Basili, Cristina (2024). "Compartir el amor: las Antígonas de Simone Weil y María Zambrano". Aurora. Papeles del Seminario María Zambrano (in Spanish). 25: 6–19.
  10. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2014). Edith Stein en Compañía: Vidas Filosóficas Entrecruzadas de Maria Zambrano, Hannah Arendt y Simone Weil (in Spanish). Plaza y valdes.
  11. ^ Amaris Duarte, Olga (2021). Una Poética del Exilio: Hannah Arendt y Maria Zambrano (in Spanish). Herder.
  12. ^ Muñoz Rodríguez, Ivonne (2023). "Sentir, pensar y amar el mundo: Hacia una razón que siente y un corazón que comprende, un diálogo entre Hannah Arendt, María Zambrano y Simone Weil". Phainomenon (in Spanish). 22 (1): e2845.
  13. ^ Boella, Laura (2010). Pensar con el corazón: Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Edith Stein, María Zambrano (in Spanish). Vol. 57. Narcea Ediciones.
  14. ^ Viana, Alicia (1999). "Un lugar en el mundo: Arendt, Weil y Zambrano". Aurora. Papeles del Seminario María Zambrano (in Spanish). 2.
  15. ^ Zambrano, María (1996). Filosofía y poesía (PDF) (in Spanish) (4th ed.). México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. p. 13.
  16. ^ Zambrano, María. Moreno Sanz, Jesús (ed.). Persona y democracia. Obras completas (in Spanish). Vol. III. Galaxia Gutenberg.
  17. ^ Zambrano, María. Moreno Sanz, Jesús (ed.). Horizonte del liberalismo. Obras completas (in Spanish). Vol. I. Galaxia Gutenberg.
  18. ^ Sánchez-Gey Venegas, Juana; Casado Marcos de León, Ángel (2007). María Zambrano. Filosofía y Educación (Manuscritos) (in Spanish). Editorial ECU.
  19. ^ Zambrano, María. Moreno Sanz, Jesús (ed.). La tumba de Antígona. Obras completas (in Spanish). Vol. III. Galaxia Gutenberg.
  20. ^ Zambrano, María. Moreno Sanz, Jesús (ed.). La razón en la sombra: Antología crítica. Biblioteca de Ensayo (in Spanish). Siruela.
  21. ^ Savignano, Armando; Llano Alonso, Fernando H. (2005). María Zambrano: la razón poética (in Spanish). Comares.
  22. ^ Balza, Isabel (2014). "Los vacíos de un texto: hacia la razón poética de María Zambrano". Cuadernos del Ateneo (in Spanish). 32: 40–54.
  23. ^ Acevedo Guerra, Jorge (2008). "La razón poética. Una aproximación (María Zambrano y Heidegger)". Aurora: papeles del Seminario María Zambrano (in Spanish). 9: 6–14.
  24. ^ Nimmo, Clare Elizabeth (1994). La razón poética in the works of María Zambrano (PhD thesis). Durham University.
  25. ^ Caballero Rodriguez, Beatriz (2017). Maria Zambrano: A Life of Poetic Reason and Political Commitment. University of Wales Press.
  26. ^ "Aurora: papeles del Seminario María Zambrano". Universitat de Barcelona (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  27. ^ "Seminario María Zambrano". Universidad Complutense de Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  28. ^ "María Zambrano". Seminari Filosofia i Gènere, Universitat de Barcelona (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  29. ^ "Premio Internacional de Ensayo María Zambrano 2025". Escritores.org (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  30. ^ "Fundación María Zambrano". Fundación María Zambrano (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  31. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2019). María Zambrano. Mínima biografía (in Spanish). La Isla de Siltolá Levante.
  32. ^ Zacarés Pamblanco, Amparo; Mascarell Dauder, Rosa (2021). María Zambrano. Filósofa de la Generación del 27 (in Spanish). Ediciones Antígona. ISBN 978-84-18119-46-0.
  33. ^ Tiana, Alejandro (2021). Las misiones pedagógicas: Educación popular en la Segunda República (in Spanish). Los Libros de La Catarata. ISBN 978-84-13521800.
  34. ^ Zambrano, María. Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. p. 691.
  35. ^ "María Zambrano Foundation Archive Information". Fundación María Zambrano (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  36. ^ Filosofia.org (in Spanish) https://www.filosofia.org/aut/bza/mora022.htm. Retrieved 22 May 2026. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  37. ^ Dueñas Díaz, Carlos (2019). Culto a la cultura: historia de la Universidad Popular Segoviana, 1919-1936 (in Spanish). Real Academia de Historia y Arte de San Quirce.
  38. ^ Zambrano, María. Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. p. 691.
  39. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2019). María Zambrano. Mínima biografía (in Spanish). La Isla de Siltolá Levante. p. 20.
  40. ^ Zambrano, María. "A modo de autobiografía," Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. pp. 715–718.
  41. ^ Zambrano, María. "A modo de autobiografía," Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. pp. 715–718.
  42. ^ Zambrano, María. "A modo de autobiografía," Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. pp. 715–718.
  43. ^ Zambrano, María. "A modo de autobiografía," Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. pp. 715–718.
  44. ^ Zambrano, María. "A modo de autobiografía," Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. pp. 715–718.
  45. ^ Zambrano, María. "A modo de autografía," Obras completas VI (in Spanish). Galaxia Gutenberg. pp. 715–718.
  46. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2019). María Zambrano. Mínima biografía (in Spanish). La Isla de Siltolá Levante. p. 20.
  47. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2019). María Zambrano. Mínima biografía (in Spanish). La Isla de Siltolá Levante. p. 20.
  48. ^ Zacarés Pamblanco, Amparo; Mascarell Dauder, Rosa (2021). María Zambrano. Filósofa de la Generación del 27 (in Spanish). Ediciones Antígona. ISBN 978-84-18119-46-0.
  49. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2019). María Zambrano. Mínima biografía (in Spanish). La Isla de Siltolá Levante. p. 20.
  50. ^ Moreno Sanz, Jesús (2019). María Zambrano. Mínima biografía (in Spanish). La Isla de Siltolá Levante. p. 20.
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