Carmen Soler

Carmen Soler (1924–1985) was a Paraguayan educator, poet and member of the Paraguayan Communist Party. She was born in Asuncion on August 4, 1924 and died in Buenos Aires on November 19, 1985. She was imprisoned and exiled several times for fighting against the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.

Education and early life

Born in the capital of Paraguay Carmen Soler attended primary and secondary there. After completing her studies and already married to Marcus Aurelius Aponte, she moved to Chaco where she worked as a bilingual rural schoolteacher. That's where she first encountered the social problems that were happening there, such as villagers without land, and the extreme poverty in which the Indians lived.

Political militancy and poetry

In 1947, she joined the Febreristas, a socialist movement in which her brother, Miguel Angel Soler, was already active. She participated actively in the struggle against the dictator Moríñigo, wanting to address social inequalities that existed in the country.

After the Civil War of 1947, she was forced into exile in Buenos Aires, where she continued to contact the Febreristas Liberation Bloc, defending the Marxist positions within the movement.

It is in exile that she began to compose poems, in which she related the experiences of her life. In her poems are her aesthetic definitions, her commitment, her longing for her homeland. Those dated 1955, 1960 and 1968 contain her testimony from prison.