# Ángeles Vicente

Ángeles Vicente García (Murcia, Spain, 28 January 1878–1918) was a Spanish writer, author of Zezé, the first novel in Spanish-language literature to have a lesbian protagonist. From 1920 onwards, all traces of the author have been lost and nothing else is known of her later life.

## Biography

Her parents were José María Vicente Nicolás, a native of Murcia, and Inocencia García Belda, a native of Cartagena.
In 1888, at the age of ten and after having lost her mother, she left for Argentina with her father and siblings, remaining there until 1906, when she returned to Spain. In Buenos Aires, she joined the Freemasons. She settled in Milan for a few months and there she began to correspond with Miguel de Unamuno. Then, after a while in Málaga, she settled in Madrid.
She started to collaborate with newspapers and magazines. After her first book, Teresilla, was published, she separated from her husband, Cándido Elormendi Goñi, and lived on what she earned from her writing, together with her father and a maid. In 1916, having been widowed, she returned to Buenos Aires, where all traces of her life have been lost.
The last two of her works that have been found are the short story La sombra que llora in magazine Reflejos [es] (Granada, August 1929), and La sorpresa in newspaper Luz [es] (Madrid, 21 March 1932). Both deal with occult themes.
Thanks to her stay in Argentina, she became acquainted with Latin American schools of thought and literary movements. She followed occultist movements and fantasy literature, especially spiritualist stories and science fiction. She also dealt with social issues and stood for women's rights. Furthermore, she wrote erotic fiction.
In Madrid, she frequented intellectual circles and met Rubén Darío, Rafael López de Haro [es], Álvaro Retana [es], Luis Linares Becerra [es], Miguel de Unamuno, Luis de Terán [es], and Emilio Fernández Vaamonde [es].

## List of works

| Title | Date of publication | Genre | Notes |
| Teresilla | 1907 | Novel | With an introduction by her friend Felipe Trigo, at the time considered the most successful Spanish author of erotic novels. The protagonist of the story, Teresilla, is seduced and abandoned by an irresponsible and womanizing man, which leads her into prostitution and a lack of options to get out of that situation. The plot reflects the lack of social support, as well as the limitations faced by women in certain historical or cultural contexts. It raises the situation of helplessness and social vulnerability of women at the time. |
| Los buitres | 1908 | Short story | Collection of 12 short stories with the common theme of social criticism. She dedicated the book to her sisters-in-law Francisca and Segunda Elormendi como testimonio de afecto. |
| Zezé | 1909 | Novel | The first literary work in Spain, written by a woman, to tell a lesbian narrative. It tells the story of cabaret singer  Zezé, as she narrates her life to a writer with whom she shares a cabin on a trip between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. |
| Sombras: cuentos psíquicos | 1910 | Short story | A collection of 14 horror and mystery stories based on Latin American myths. She had previously published these in magazine Blanco y Negro and El Imparcial newspaper between 1912 and 1915. |