the Lyceum Women's Club, Encarna Aragoneses was not engaged in any political activity, however she believed that the Second Spanish Republic would end illiteracy and bring equality into women's lives. At the start of the Spanish Civil War she stayed in Madrid with her husband who was loyal to the Republic. In Celia en la revolución (1987), an accurate portrayal of Republican Spain during the siege of Madrid, the author wonders who is right and expresses her own thoughts and sufferings of the war through Celia who is horrified at the uncompromising positions of both sides. In 1938 she became a member of the Comisión del Teatro de los Niños and in July her play Moñitos (Baubles) was staged. Exile Later that year she and her husband went to Paris and then into exile in Argentina with help from her daughter-in-law's family. In Buenos Aires she met the writer Jorge Luis Borges at the National Public Library where they were both working. Unlike other writers who left Spain because of the war, her Celia books continued to be published despite the fact that Celia, like Encarna and her husband, was a Republican with no specific party affiliation. In 1948 she returned to Spain to negotiate the possibility of an amnesty for her husband. She was not persecuted because she did not belong to a political party, her only crime was being a woman who felt that the Republic would enhance the education and role of women in society. She visited with her old friends from the "defunct" Lyceum Women's Club which was continuing its activities in an unofficial and clandestine way. A few months later her husband, who was still in Buenos Aires, committed suicide. Grief-stricken she went to America to live with her son who was in exile. Later she returned to Madrid and died on 8 May 1952 at age 65. In 1957, a few years after her death, María Martos de Baeza and playwright Matilde Ras sponsored a fund raising effort to erect a monument in her honor in the Parque del Oeste in Madrid. The relief which shows Elena Fortún between two children was designed by the Murcian sculptor José Planes. In Córdoba there are the beautiful Jardines Escritora Elena Fortún named in her honor; as well as the streets, Calle Elena Fortún in Madrid, Las Rozas de Madrid, Valdetorres de Jarama and, in Málaga, the