Luz de Viana

Marta Villanueva Cárdenas was born in Santiago, Chile. Her first published work was No sirve la Luna blanca (1945),^[8] for which she won the Athena Award from the University of Concepción.^[9] She is assigned to the "School of Subjectivity" of feminine literature in Chile and of contemporary Chilean writers.^[10] As a painter, under the pseudonym Marta Villanueva,^[2] she is included in the Grupo Montparnasse.^[11] Her husband was Alfonso Bulnes Calvo (1885–1970), Chilean historian, essayist and diplomat.^[5][6] She died in Santiago.^[12]

Along with María Carolina Geel, Cárdenas is considered to be an important and liberal writer in the field of feminist writing.^[13][14] Cárdenas studied art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and studio of André Lothe in Paris.^[15][6]

In 1945, Cárdenas received the Athena Award.^[4]