2017 Essays

María Luz Morales Godoy

Soto-Vázquez, Begoña

María Luz Morales—officially known as María Luz Morales Godoy, but, following Spanish tradition, only went by her first surname—is not an unknown name in the history of culture and journalism in Spain. However, her name is only known within the narrow limits reserved for the acknowledgment of a woman within the Spanish context of her time. Her recognition is due, mainly, to her career as a journalist. In 1936, she was the first female director of the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and also worked as an editor, translator, and adaptor of literature for children, adapting many classics for the series Las Obras Maestras al Alcance de los Niños for the publishing company Araluce in the early 20th century. Furthermore, her work as a promotor of women’s education—in relation to the Residencia Internacional de Señoritas Estudiantes/International Residency for Female Students, which was created in 1931 and which she directed—is just starting to be acknowledged. Thus, her cinematographic career is eclipsed as a result of all her other activities, together with the fact that most of her journalistic texts on cinema were written under a masculine pseudonym: Felipe Centeno.