This bilingual (facing-page English and Spanish) poetry collection documents the Jewish-Chilean-American author's search for remnants of her grandmother's life during the Holocaust in Prague and Vienna, and later in Chile.
Marjorie Agosín was born in Maryland and raised in Chile. She and her parents, Moises and Frida Agosín, moved to the United States due to the overthrow of the Chilean government by General Pinochet's military coup. Coming from a South American country and being Jewish, Agosín's writings demonstrate a unique blending of these cultures.
Agosín is well known as a poet, critic, and human activist. She is also a well-known spokesperson for the plight and priorities of women in Third World countries. Her deep social concerns and accomplishments have earned her many awards and recognitions, and she has gained an international reputation among contemporary women of color.
Agosín, a passionate writer, has received critical acclaim for her poetry collections, her close reflections on her parents and family, and her multi-layered stories. Within every novel, story, or poem, she captures the very essence of Jewish women at their best. Agosín's works reveal the experiences of pain and anguish of Jewish refugees. She writes about the Holocaust as well as anti-Semitic events that occurred in her native land.
Agosín has many fascinating works and is recognized in both North and South America as one of the most versatile and provocative Latin American writers. Agosín became a writer to make a difference: "I wanted to change the world through peace and beauty," she said. Today she is not only a writer, but also a Spanish professor at Wellesley College.
I would have enjoyed this more if the format for the translation in the ebook (via the library) hadn't been so awkward. There was the original poem in Spanish. Then, there was the translation, with the original Spanish stanzas interspersed with the translated stanzas in English. It wasn't even every other or every second stanza and it wasn't Spanglish but just random, which didn't make for smooth reading.