Given both the constant interest in Simón Bolívar and the enduring popularity of biography as a genre, it comes as quite a surprise to discover that there has been very little about the Liberator's great love, Manuela Sáenz, available to English-language readers. In fact, before the publication of Pamela Murray's book, there had been only one previous biography of Sáenz in English, and even that was written nearly 60 years ago by Victor von Hagen. Luckily for students and general-interest readers alike, Pamela Murray has created an engaging, fast-paced, modern life-history of the woman sometimes called La Libertadora. The book is a welcome addition, not primarily for its contribution to the massive and growing body of work on Bolívar, but rather as a case study for research on the nature of changing gender roles in the transition to Independence that has been done by Sarah Chambers, Arlene Díaz, Guiomar Dueñas and others.
Pamela Murray has demonstrated several notable strengths in this short, comprehensive biography. First, her ability to place Sáenz's life effectively within its social and political matrix is impressive and reflects a methodology known as the ‘New Biography’. By stressing life story as performance, ‘new’ biographers utilise insights from literary criticism and postmodern theory to frame the range of possibilities available to the subject at any particular moment. Murray's biography is also very clear in its intent to focus specifically on Sáenz, and successfully resists the temptation to become distracted by the overwhelming presence of Bolívar in her life. The author is able to keep her attention firmly on La Libertadora herself, while drawing on insights from research into women's history to add more depth to the gendered nature of her subject's experiences. Third, this book excels at the central purpose of any biography, namely bringing a historical figure back to life. In Murray's deftly crafted account, Manuela Sáenz becomes a recognisable human being with a distinct personality. Finally, the author has added value to her study by including an interesting discussion of La Libertadora's posthumous life – that is to say, the way in which her memory has been pressed into service on behalf of contemporary political groups or causes. Manuela Sáenz's reputation has become a battleground where various political factions can stake their own claims to legitimacy based on particular interpretations of her actions and even her very essence.
In Pamela Murray's biography Manuela Sáenz springs to life as a real person, someone who lived and breathed and who had her own strengths and weaknesses. She was a woman who did not always behave with judgement or consistency but whose actions made sense in the exact moment in which they occurred. Details of the domestic arrangements between Sáenz and Bolívar, for example, are intimate and surprisingly sweet. Early in their relationship, during one of their frequent separations, Sáenz became distraught at the rumour that Bolívar was having an affair. She pressed for information about the company he was keeping and told a mutual friend that she felt panicky and feared she might die as a result of the possible betrayal (p. 39). In another example, on the night of a well-known attempt on his life in September 1828, Bolívar had been cranky, taken a bath, and fallen asleep while she read to him in bed with their dogs barking in the background (p. 66). After Bolívar's death, a grief-stricken Sáenz starts chain-smoking cigarillos and falls into a depression. The cumulative effect of these well-chosen details is that Manuela Sáenz is made an authentic human being, subject to the same emotions and having many of the same common life experiences as the rest of us.
Murray has done an excellent job of utilising as much extant documentation for Sáenz's life as can be located. In the course of her research, she visited archives in six countries and consulted the printed memoirs of dozens of contemporary people who knew the subject personally. Murray is a good and careful historian, always identifying where the gaps in documentation might be and seeking balance among the various competing accounts. She has two main content-related problems, however, which are not uncommon in biographies. First, there are significant periods of Sáenz's life for which no evidence has survived. This unfortunate circumstance often forces the author to keep the narrative continuity going by telling the story around her subject rather than the story of her subject. Murray is aware of this challenge and handles the unavoidable gaps by clearly identifying the limits of her source base as she goes along. Another difficult challenge for biographers is the problem of first discerning and then documenting the subject's internal motivation. This latter issue has more frustrating results for readers of this specific biography because of the many instances in which the author asserts that something might have happened, or a person might have been thinking something, or been motivated by something. Although these types of conjecture are always based on logic and available evidence, there are enough of them in this biography for the cumulative effect to be noticeable.
Pamela Murray's biography of Manuela Sáenz is well written, intensively researched, and engagingly told. The author has incorporated the best recent research into the activities and changing status of women during the Independence era to put La Libertadora's experience into its proper context. In several places there are interesting hints of the way race, class and gender intersected to shape the parameters of her life's possibilities. Sáenz's national affiliations also shifted over the course of her life, underscoring the fluidity of both nation and identity in the early republican era. This modern, professional, nuanced retelling of Manuela Sáenz's biography is a welcome addition to the growing body of work on Latin American women's history, and will also be useful to those interested in the Independence era more generally.
