Mercedes Carvajal de Arocha
Mercedes Carvajal de Arocha known as Lucila Palacios (8 November 1902 – 31 August 1994) was a Trinidadian-Venezuelan writer, politician and diplomat. She was the first female elected to the Venezuelan Senate and the first female member of the Venezuelan Academy of Language.

Life
Carvajal was born on the island of Trinidad in 1902 in Port of Spain. She took the pen name Lucila Palacios. She chose the name of Lucila in honour of the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral whose real first name was Lucila. Her new surname was taken from Concepción Palacios who was Simon Bolivar's mother. She married Carlos Arocha and they had four children.

In 1931 she began writing and in 1947 she was a representative in the National Constituent Assembly. From 1948 to 1952 she was a senator. During this time she was raped. She was known for defending the rights of women and children.

She wrote short stories, poems and novels in Spanish. She won a number of prestigious awards and she was the first woman member of the Academia Venezolana de la Lengua who are interested in Venezuelan Spanish.

In 1963 she became her country's ambassador to Uruguay.

Carvajal died in Caracas in 1994.

Legacy
Her novels have been studied and published as The Political Novels of Lucila Palacios and Marta Lynch.

References

1902 births
1994 deaths
People from Port of Spain
Immigrants to Venezuela
Trinidad and Tobago emigrants
Venezuelan people of Trinidad and Tobago descent
Venezuelan women writers
Members of the Senate of Venezuela
20th-century Venezuelan women politicians
20th-century Venezuelan politicians
Members of the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly of 1946