She was a member of her country's Generation of '50, which also included Marta Jara [es], Elisa Serrana, Elena Aldunate, and Mercedes Valdivieso.
[2] However, she also had an affair with the German pianist Walter Gieseking, a relationship she addressed in her 1953 novel Mi patria fue su música.
[3] After living for a few years in Rapallo, Italy, Ladrón de Guevara returned to Chile, where she began to participate in politics, becoming one of the founders of the Chilean Women's Party [es] in 1946.
Although sympathetic to their point of view, she was able to learn of the prisons of the regime and the atmosphere of repression, which she expressed in Adiós al cañaveral (1962).
Matilde Ladrón de Guevara died at age 99 at Santiago's Military Hospital [es] on 22 August 2009 from tumors which had been detected shortly before her death.