Diana Raznovich

Diana Raznovich was born in Buenos Aires in 1945, the oldest of three children. Her grandparents were European Jewish immigrants to the country from the Russian Empire and Vienna.{{Cite web|last=Glickman|first=Nora|title=Diana Raznovich|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/raznovich-diana|access-date=2020-09-28|website=Jewish Women's Archive|language=en}}

She studied literature at the University of Buenos Aires,{{Cite web|title=Diana Raznovich|url=http://www.newspanishbooks.us/author/diana-raznovich|access-date=2020-09-28|website=New Spanish Books}} where she was chosen as one of the students who would read to professor Jorge Luis Borges, who had gone blind by that time.{{Cite web|last=Vilar-Bou|first=José Miguel|date=2016-04-04|title=Diana Raznovich: "Borges aspiraba a que ninguna de sus palabras fuese reemplazable por otra"|url=https://www.eldiario.es/murcia/entrevistas/diana-raznovich-escritora-borges-reemplazable_1_4117975.html|access-date=2020-09-28|website=ElDiario.es|language=es}}

Raznovich's first play, Buscapiés, won a theater contest in 1967, jumpstarting her career when she was only 22 years old. After she wrote several more plays in the late 1960s and early 1970s, her career was disrupted by political violence and repression. Her husband Ernesto Clusellas was disappeared in 1974 during the escalating political persecution ahead of Argentina's Dirty War. He had been actively involved in the resistance movement and, unbeknownst to Raznovich, had stored an armory of weapons in their apartment.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/213480061|title=Stages of conflict : a critical anthology of Latin American theater and performance|date=2008|publisher=University of Michigan Press|others=Carson, Margaret (Margaret B.), Taylor, Diana, 1950-, Townsend, Sarah J.|isbn=978-0-472-07027-5|location=Ann Arbor|oclc=213480061}}

Raznovich self-exiled the following year amid threats from the armed forces. She settled in Spain, where she taught playwriting at the Centro de Estudios Teatrales in Madrid and continued to write her own plays.

In 1981, she visited Argentina from exile to participate in the Teatro Abierto festival, a grouping of one-act plays in defiance of the military dictatorship's restrictions on expression. The military burned down the theater hosting the festival the night her play, Desconcierto, was presented.

She returned to Argentina after the fall of the dictatorship in 1983, but she moved back to Spain from 1988 until 1993. She then settled again in Argentina until 2000, when she returned once again to Spain. Her plays were performed in various languages on both sides of the Atlantic throughout this period, notably Jardin de otoño (1983), Casa Matriz (1991), De atrás para adelante (1993), and De la cintura para abajo (1999).

In 1992, Raznovich received a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue her work as a playwright."[https://web.archive.org/web/20110622013732/http://www.gf.org/fellows/results?query=&lower_bound=1992&upper_bound=1992&competition=ALL&fellowship_category=ALL&x=20&y=11 Archived copy]". Archived from [http://www.gf.org/fellows/results?query=&lower_bound=1992&upper_bound=1992&competition=ALL&fellowship_category=ALL&x=20&y=11 the original] on 2011-06-22. Retrieved 2010-04-27.{{Cite web|title=Diana Raznovich|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/diana-raznovich/|access-date=2020-09-28|website=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation|language=en-US}} In 2002, she published a bilingual collection of four of her plays, titled Defiant Acts/Actos Desafiantes.{{Cite book|last=Taylor, Diana and Victoria Martínez|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/947220018|title=Defiant acts: Four Plays by Diana Raznovich.|date=2002|publisher=Bucknell Univ Press|isbn=1-61148-138-4|oclc=947220018}}

Raznovich is also a cartoonist.{{Cite web|date=2014-11-11|title=Entrevista a Diana Raznovich|url=https://www.enrealidadnotienegracia.org/entrevista-a-diana-raznovich/|access-date=2020-09-28|website=En Realidad No Tiene Gracia|language=es}}{{Cite web|date=2011-08-02|title=La humorista gráfica Diana Raznovich expone en el Centro de Igualdad de Cruz Roja|url=https://www.elnortedecastilla.es/20110802/local/valladolid/humorista-grafica-diana-raznovich-201108021325.html|access-date=2020-09-28|website=El Norte de Castilla|language=es}} Her early humorous illustrations were tied to her involvement in the Argentine feminist movement, as she contributed cartoons to the women's and LGBT rights-centered magazine Alfonsina in the 1980s.{{Cite web|title=Alfonsina. Primer periódico para mujeres (1983-1984)|url=http://exhibiciones.cedinci.org/exhibits/show/organos_confusion/alfonsina|access-date=2020-09-28|website=Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas}} Her cartooning is based in the concept that women's humor is inherently political, as explained in her "Manifesto 2000 of Feminine Humor," and she has tackled such serious subjects as gender-based violence.

Since 2012 she has published the cartoon Donatela on the back page of the Argentine newspaper Clarín. She has also published collections of her cartoons, including Mujeres pluscuamperfectas in 2010 and Divinas y Chamuscadas in 2011.{{Cite web|date=2018-11-23|title=Presentado en Villena "Divinas y Chamuscadas" de Diana Raznovich|url=http://www.villena.es/noticia/presentado-en-villena-divinas-y-chamuscadas-de-diana-raznovich/|access-date=2020-09-28|website=Villena}}{{Cite web|date=2009-11-04|title=Diana Raznovich: "Si no hay clientes, las mafias se desbaratan"|url=https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-diana-raznovich-si-no-clientes-mafias-desbaratan-200911040300-1131177456293_noticia.html|access-date=2020-09-28|website=ABC|language=es}}

In 2022, her work was the subject of a censorship campaign by a group of Spanish judges who took offense at her depiction of a judge's flippant reaction to spousal abuse, leading to the piece's removal from an exhibit on the Balearic Islands.{{Cite news |last=Madrid |first=Charlie Devereux |title=Don't call us sexist, Spanish judges tell cartoonist |language=en |work=The Times |url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/dont-call-us-sexist-spanish-judges-tell-cartoonist-skd86wfdv |access-date=2022-07-19 |issn=0140-0460}} The artist condemned her critics for their "disproportionate" reaction and asked for her cartoon to be reinstated in the exhibit.{{Cite web |last=Morales |first=Margarita |date=2022-03-31 |title=Diana Raznovich: "La censura a un artista es una expresión de falta de salud democrática" |url=https://valenciaplaza.com/diana-raznovich-la-censura-a-un-artista-es-un-expresion-de-falta-de-salud-democratica |access-date=2022-07-19 |website=Cultur Plaza |language=es}}

Raznovich has also written poetry and novels, including Para que se cumplan todos tus deseos in 1989, though she primarily works in plays.{{Cite web|title=Diana Raznovich|url=http://www.autores.org.ar/sitios/dianaesp/index.htm|access-date=2020-09-28|website=ARGENTORES}} She also worked as a screenwriter for the telenovela Bárbara Narváez in the 1980s.

Raznovich's first husband, Ernesto Clusellas, disappeared like so many others during the Dirty War. She later learned that he had been assassinated in 1978.

She subsequently married the theater director Hugo Urquijo, who directed her plays Desconcierto and Jardín de otoño, but the couple divorced in 1983.{{Cite web|title=Hugo Urquijo|url=https://www.alternativateatral.com/persona3770-hugo-urquijo|access-date=2020-09-28|website=Alternativa. Comunidad en escena.}}

Raznovich is bisexual, and much of her work deals with gender and sexuality.{{Cite web|date=2015-05-02|title=Keshet Goes to the Theater|url=http://www.jewishboston.com/events/keshet-goes-to-the-theater/|access-date=2020-09-28|website=JewishBoston|language=en-US}} Some of her work is also informed by her Jewish heritage, and she has studied Kabbalah as an adult.

• Buscapiés, 1968.
• Plaza hay una sola, 1969.
• El guardagente, 1970.
• Contratiempo, 1971.
• Efectos personales, 1975.
• Jardín de otoño, 1977.
• El desconcierto, 1981.
• Objetos perdidos, 1988.
• Casa Matriz, 1988.
• La madre posmoderna, 1993.
• De atrás para adelante, 1993.
• De la cintura para abajo, 1999.
• El cuerpo efímero: una muerte de lujo, 2007.

• Tiempo de amar, 1960.
• Caminata en tu sombra, 1964.

• Para que se cumplan todos tus deseos, 1989.
• Mater erótica, 1991.

• Cables pelados, 1987.
• Sopa de Lunares, 2008.
• Mujeres Pluscuamperfectas, 2010.
• Divinas y Chamuscadas, 2011.{{Cite web|title=Complete List of Works by Diana Raznovich|url=https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/hidvl-collections/itemlist/category/293-raz-list-cat.html|access-date=2020-09-28|website=Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics}}

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Category:1945 births

Category:Living people

Category:Argentine women writers

Category:Argentine LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights

Category:Argentine women dramatists and playwrights

Category:Argentine bisexual women

Category:Argentine Jews

Category:Jewish women writers

Category:Jewish dramatists and playwrights

Category:Argentine exiles

Category:Bisexual women writers

Category:Bisexual dramatists and playwrights

Category:21st-century Argentine LGBTQ people

Category:University of Buenos Aires alumni