María Isabel Carvajal Quesada was born on 15 January 1887 in
San José, Costa Rica, and attended the Superior School for Girls, graduating in 1904. She began working at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in 1906 as a novice, but decided religious life was not her calling, and instead began working as a teacher and writer. She started sending articles to newspapers and teaching throughout the country. In 1918, she published her first novel,
En una silla de ruedas (In a Wheelchair), which portrays national customs and manners through the eyes of a paralysed boy who grows up to become an artist, with a strong dose of sentimentalism and intimations of the bohemian life of San José. In 1919, during a teacher's protest against
the dictatorship of
Federico Tinoco Granados, Lyra galvanized the crowd, and in their anger, they burned the government news office. She managed to escape the police manhunt disguised as a news seller. In 1920, she published her best-known work,
Los Cuentos de Mi Tia Panchita (Tales of My Aunt Panchita), a collection of folk tales. Lyra's home became a gathering place for intellectuals and writers, She was joined by fellow teachers María Alfaro de Mata,
Odilia Castro Hidalgo, Adela Ferreto, Angela García,
Luisa González, Stella Peralta, Emilia Prieto, Lilia Ramos, Esther Silva and Hortensia Zelaya, who had been radicalized at the Normal School (teacher's college), to challenge a society built on privilege and the roles of women being confined to home, marriage, and motherhood. That same year, Lyra and Luisa González formed the Unique Union of Women Workers and suggested the creation of a union for Costa Rican teachers, In 1931, she published
Bananos y Hombres (Bananas and Men) anticipating the actual As her politics and activities became more radical, Lyra was removed from her teaching posts she was sent into exile in Mexico. Despite repeated pleas to be allowed to return home due to illness, Lyra was denied and died in Mexico City on 14 May 1949. In 1962 the Board of Education of Cóbano named a school in her honor, and the
Costa Rica Legislative Assembly awarded her the honor of
Benemérita de la Cultura Nacional in 1976. As of 2010 Carmen Lyra is depicted on the twenty thousand colón bill. The Miravalles Quintet premiered in 2011 at the Teatro Nacional its new work entitled Homenaje a Carmen Lyra, an interdisciplinary chamber show, original Costa Rican composition, painting, literature, narration and dance-inspired by the author's writings. ==Books==