Andrés Neuman: "María Moliner's life is absolutely fascinating."

In a house on Don Quijote Street in Madrid, a woman undertook a task worthy of the unbridled imagination of that Cervantes character. Her name was María Moliner , and she was already fifty years old when she decided that the Royal Spanish Academy's dictionary needed a rewrite to make it more readable to speakers of the language. In his novel "Hasta que empieza a brillar" (Until It Begins to Shine) (Alfaguara), the Spanish-Argentine writer Andrés Neuman paints a biographical account of Moliner to honor her work and illuminate a life permeated by words.

The Diccionario de Uso del Español (Dictionary of Spanish Usage) , first published in 1966, became an essential reference for native speakers and language learners alike. "El Moliner" —as it came to be known, mimicking its author —established a subtle dispute with the Academy , not only for daring to introduce changes to the definitions , an act of rebellion in itself, but also for incorporating expressions from the spoken language , perhaps the gesture that established it as the people's dictionary.

Neuman—who in his book Barbarismos (2014) also challenged word definitions —insinuated that the meanings Moliner wrote could be interpreted biographically . Moliner was born in 1900 and graduated in History from the University of Zaragoza. She was the first female professor at the University of Murcia and worked in several libraries and archives in Spain. She eventually became director of the University of Valencia Library.

She played a distinguished role as part of the Pedagogical Missions of the Second Spanish Republic and as a civil servant, creating and organizing libraries throughout the country. The rise of Franco's regime to power in 1939 was a severe blow to her personal and professional life, as well as to that of her husband, Fernando Ramón Ferrando.

She was the first woman to be nominated for membership in the Royal Academy, a position she was ultimately rejected . The prevailing machismo, Moliner's popularity, and professional misgivings are some of the possible reasons that have been proposed to explain her rejection.

Neuman, who is in Buenos Aires to present the book at the Book Fair on May 9 , spoke with Clarín .

–Why did you choose to tell the story of María Moliner?

I studied Philology and I'm passionate about linguistics, the secrets that lurk behind words. One day I wondered why I knew so little about the author of my favorite dictionary. I began researching and was amazed: far from what we usually assume, María Moliner's life is absolutely fascinating, full of adventures and adversities. I spent a decade studying her biography, her legacy as a librarian, academic articles, letters, family testimonies, and so on. But above all, I reread her dictionary as if it were a novel: she wrote it alone in her home, for more than fifteen years, until she completed eighty thousand words. Her definitions are not only clearer and more precise than academic ones, but also wiser and more generous: it's a book that accompanies life. Her usage examples are subtly revolutionary because she invented them herself and are full of daring, critical spirit, and historical awareness.

–The book explores different ways of viewing words and language in different contexts. Among the themes, there's one you previously explored in another of your books: the rediscovery of language from the moment children learn to speak. A central theme is how authoritarianism also exerts violence through words, whether through the distortion of the way we name things or through the silences it generates.

–I've always been intrigued by something obvious but mysterious: everyone learns to speak their mother tongue, but no one can remember it. Mothering or fathering is perhaps the closest thing to recovering that memory. Only childhood or poetry interrogate the world word by word, and only philosophy asks what each thing is. All of this comes into play in a dictionary. Moliner poured her experience as a lexicographer and librarian into hers, but also as a mother and grandmother, because it's the culmination of a lifetime of wisdom. To complete this incredible work, Doña María had to confront three forms of authority. The linguistic authority of the Royal Academy, to which she answers, definition by definition, brilliantly. The political authority of Franco's censorship, against which she has to sharpen her wits to sow her criticisms and rebellions between the lines. And another, more transversal one, which is gender: we're probably talking about the most influential lexicographer of all time. A tremendous silence was that of exile, a concept barely defined in the academic dictionary, which she bravely explores. Another key issue is media censorship: Moliner uses the verb "to block" to give two examples. One seemingly harmless: a ball in a sport. And the other, a risky one: a radio broadcast!

–Moliner's work and your book raise an ongoing discussion regarding the role of intellectuals and academics in their connection to the popular sectors. In what ways was Moliner's approach different?

–Doña María introduced modern developments in her way of working with language that are now in the public eye. She read newspapers, listened to the radio, and took notes. She went to the market to collect words. She met young people to observe how oral expression and vocabulary changed. Thus, she introduced “bikini” for the first time into a dictionary, which was prohibited by the Regime and absent from the official dictionary. And she had to describe it in an ironically modest way so that censorship wouldn't repress her! She knew how to expand the heritage of the language and take it out of the more academic canon, making familiar and everyday uses visible. Instead of limiting herself to reproducing famous quotes, she invented most of the examples with great ear and elegance. So her dictionary is a work of linguistic fiction, an act of freedom and reappropriation of the language by each speaker. She also decentralized the canon: she was a nomadic worker in her country, spending half her life changing regions and listening to different accents. She had no centralist ambition or imperial vocation. This makes her much more legible, beloved, and relatable in Latin America.

–Something that also comes across very clearly is the role of women during that time. Was it your intention to introduce a gender perspective when telling this story?

–More than intentional, it was simply inevitable when it came to telling the life of a pioneering woman in so many fields, so on the periphery of power and accustomed to rowing against adversity. Her father abandoned her, ran away to Buenos Aires, and she had to work from childhood to pay for her studies. She was among the first university students in Spain, the first female professor in history at the University of Murcia, and one of the great librarians of the twentieth century. She founded a school in Valencia, and more than one hundred rural libraries. She traveled to personally care for each one of them. And she proposed a law so that all books could reach even the smallest village. Another striking omission in the official dictionary concerned caregiving. The Royal Academy's examples had no subject, and Doña María rewrites each sentence to make visible who, to this day, bears our caregiving duties: mothers, grandmothers, nurses… Each sentence in Moliner's dictionary is a small act of generosity and reparation.

–What words would you highlight from María Moliner’s dictionary?

–'Caring,' which Doña María considered synonymous with thinking, because caring for ourselves collectively is the most intelligent thing we can do as a species. 'Mother,' the first word in any language, which for the Academy was a mere female who gives birth, and which she sensibly dignifies: 'a woman who has or has had children,' thus including the possibility of adoption and also of loss, because Doña María had lost a daughter. And 'love,' which in Moliner finds the antidote to toxic love: 'rejoicing in what is good for the other person and suffering with what is bad.' A great love for language and for life is required to achieve this synthesis.

Andrés Neuman will present Until It Begins to Shine on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. in the Carlos Gorostiza hall.