Carmen Baroja

Carmen Baroja Nessi (1883, Pamplona- 4 June 1950, Madrid) was a Spanish writer and ethnologist who wrote under the pseudonym Vera Alzate. She was the sister of the writers Ricardo Baroja and Pío Baroja, and mother of the anthropologist Julio Caro Baroja and film director Pío Caro Baroja.

Baroja was the youngest child of Serafin Baroja, a Basque writer and poet who made his living as a mining engineer, and Carmen Nessi y Goñia, a woman of Basque and Italian descent. At the time of her birth, her father was editing Bai, Juana, Bai, the first (Basque-Castilian) bilingual periodical to be published in Pamplona. When it closed down after six issues, her father went back to his profession as a mining engineer and took the family to Burjassot near València, Cestona in Guipúzcoa, and San Sebastián.

In 1894, her family moved to Madrid to help her aunt, Juana Nessi, in her bakery, Viena Capellanes, after the death of her husband, Matías Lacasa. Her early education was at Catholic girls' schools, with private lessons in French and music. Thanks to her father's love for theatre and music she regularly attended concerts and theatrical productions. At this time, both her brothers were gaining prominence on the cultural scene, with Ricardo becoming recognized as a painter and Pío having his first literary works published. Through them, she came into contact with artists, writers and intellectuals who were shaping the new cultural world of Spain.

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