--- description: On newsstands and to subscribers all over Latin America* this week went more than 100,000 copies of a brand-new magazine: LIFE EN ESPANOL, first foreign-language publication in the history of TIME... title: The Theater: Spanish LIFE image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # The Theater: Spanish LIFE by [TIME](/author/time/) Dec 29, 1952 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Dec 29, 1952 5:00 AM CUT On newsstands and to subscribers all over Latin America\* this week went more than 100,000 copies of a brand-new magazine: LIFE EN ESPANOL, first foreign-language publication in the history of TIME Inc. The new fortnightly, which took a year to plan and staff, is edited and translated in New York, printed in Chicago. (To set the magazine, TIME Inc. teletypesetters were sent to school to learn Spanish.; Part of the bilingual staff is made up of writers and journalists from Latin American countries, including Alberto Cellario and Leonor Villanueva, ex-editors on the staff of La Prensa, the once great Argentine daily taken over by Peron. Other Latin American staffers: Walter Montenegro, one of Bolivia’s leading newspaper columnists: Roberto Esquenazi-Mayo, winner of Cuba’s 1951 National Literary Prize; Maruxa Nunez de Villa-vicencio, former fashion editor of Havana’s daily. El Mundo; Ramon Frausto, who wrote a column syndicated in more than 40 Mexican papers. Although most of the Spanish-language LIFE will consist of articles and pictures from the domestic edition of LIFE, each issue will also have pictures, articles and selections prepared especially for the Spanish-language edition. For example. No. 1 has an eleven-page illustrated article on Cuban Patriot Jose Marti, together with some of his original writings. As a regular feature, the Spanish-language LIFE also has a “Letter from North America.” In its Letters-to-the-Editor section, Colombia Publisher Maurice Obregón, owner of Semana, a weekly newsmagazine, wrote:”We respect the competition of your admirable magazine . . . but we do not wish in any way to prevent the competition, for two reasons: first, because we believe that competition is inevitable in any healthy country, and second, because we hope that LIFE EN ESPANOL will contribute to the information and education of our people.” \-Except Argentina, where all TIME Inc. publications are banned. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6887279/the-theater-spanish-life/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6887279/the-theater-spanish-life/"},"headline":"The Theater: Spanish LIFE","datePublished":"1952-12-29T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-19T17:09:47.255Z","description":"On newsstands and to subscribers all over Latin America* this week went more than 100,000 copies of a brand-new magazine: LIFE EN ESPANOL, first foreign-language publication in the history of TIME...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6887279/the-theater-spanish-life/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6887279/the-theater-spanish-life/","name":"The Theater: Spanish LIFE"}}]}] ```