Born on July 12, 1907 in Popayán (Colombia), María del Carmen Paredes Pardo was the eighth of the twelve children of Mrs. María Pardo and Mr. Antonio Paredes, home in whose house was famous the gatherings with friends and personalities of the 20th century. Sister of the renowned writer and journalist Jaime Paredes Pardo -who was Mayor of Popayán, Governor of Cauca, and deputy director for several years of cultural magazine of the newspaper EL TIEMPO-, Carmen led a discreet life, characterized by her singular and introvert personality, and a poetic vocation of great lyricism and introspection. Suffering in the last decade of her life from a decline in her mental health, she was transferred to a sanatorium in the city of Pasto, where she died on May 23, 1980, at 72 years of age.