A Voice in the Margins: Ana María Martínez Sagi’s Poetry in Exile

A symbol of changing times in early 1930s Spain, Ana María Martínez Sagi’s emerging literary and political voice was becoming a strong defender of women’s rights and the newly formed Second Republic. Yet, she had to face the consequences of General Francisco Franco’s coup d’état and the civil war that ensued (1936–1939). Franco’s victory caused her exile from Spain first to France and later to the United States. Her literary work during exile intensively displays her sentiment of displacement (the object of this study). Much of Sagi’s work is found in two anthologies, La voz sola and Laberinto de presencias: Antología poética. Sagi’s poetry depicts the notion of country as serious absence. Her portrayal of a faraway home reflects the traumatic experience of a person without a nation. Poetic themes include the war, memories, nostalgia, resignation, loss, loneliness, distance, and an increasing lack of hope. A constant and unyielding feeling of isolation is always present in her writings as the poetic persona wonders if her uprooted heart’s desire for a sense of belonging will ever become true. Indeed, Sagi belongs to the diaspora of intellectual, feminist, Spanish, women writers exiled from their homeland due to political circumstances.