Anita Brenner

Who was Anita Brenner?

Anita Brenner, an author of children's literature and books on Mexican art and history, was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her father, a Jewish emigrant to Mexico from Latvia, moved his family back and forth from Mexico to Texas during the revolution. In 1916 the family settled in San Antonio, Texas.

She returned to Mexico around the age of 18. After four years in Mexico City, she left for Columbia University in 1927. At Columbia she aroused the ire of the influential Diana Trilling who resented what she perceived as the disproportionate attention Brenner was given. She remained in New York City for 17 years, returning to Mexico City in 1940, where she lived until her death thirty-four years later.

Brenner had been educated in the United States for over a dozen years, but the Mexican Revolution shaped her thinking. She came to believe that the Revolution had been bound to happen due to the way the land-owners and politicians were running the country.

She wrote several books, but Idols behind Altars and The Wind That Swept Mexico were the most influential and acclaimed. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for "Fine Arts Research" in 1930 and 1931.