Gabriela Mistral (April 7, 1889 – January 10, 1957, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga) was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist. Here you can sample nine poems by Gabriela Mistral about life, love, and death, both in their original Spanish (poemas de Gabriela Mistral), and in English translation.
In 1945, Mistral became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Mistral stopped formally attending school at the age of fifteen to care for her sick mother, but continued to write poetry. Just two years later, her heart broke after the sad deaths of her lover, Romeo Ureta, and a close nephew. Read More→
Gabriela Mistral, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (April 7, 1889 – January 10, 1957), was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist. She grew up living in poverty with her family in a small Andean village of Montegrande and developed her father’s gift for teaching despite having dropped out of school at age fifteen.
After multiple notable works including Sonetos de la muerte (1914) and Lagar (1954), Mistral received national recognition and praise as her was translated into various languages from her native Spanish.
Though she’s best known for being the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, she did so much more during her remarkable life. Here are some fascinating facts about Gabriela Mistral that may inspire you to learn more about her, and better yet, to read her work.
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Shirley, the second published novel by Charlotte Brontë, came out in 1849 while she was still using the pseudonym Currer Bell. Charlotte had already achieved fame and notoriety with the wildly successful Jane Eyre under her ambiguous nom de plume. The question we’ll be exploring here is how much of Shirley’s character did Charlotte draw from her sister Emily.
A more challenging novel to read than Jane Eyre, Shirley: A Tale is now considered a prime example of the mid-19th century “social novel.” The social novels that emerged from that period were works of fiction dealing with themes like labor injustice, abuse of and bias against women, and poverty. Read More→
Tasha Tudor (August 28, 1915 – June 18, 2008) not only wrote and illustrated some two dozen of her own titles, but her exquisitely detailed watercolors and drawings grace scores of other books. Her writing and art have earned her a secure place in children’s literature, yet she became nearly as famous for her unconventional lifestyle.
Anyone who knows a bit about Tasha’s private life will know that she was a consummate Corgi lover. And if this is news to you, you’re in for a lovely look at Tasha Tudor’s corgis.
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A Lost Lady (1923) is a shining example of Willa Cather’s gift for concise expression and talent for vivid character studies. Marian Forrester, a young woman of beauty and grace, brings an uncommon air of sophistication to the frontier town of Sweet Water.
Marian wound up in Sweet Water, which lay along the Transcontinental Railroad, through her marriage to the much older Captain Daniel Forrester.
The novel is written from the viewpoint of Niel Herbert, a young man who has grown up in Sweet Water. He idealizes Mrs. Forrester, even as he witnesses her decline. As a contemporary edition of A Lost Lady concludes, “The recurrent conflict in Cather’s work, between frontier culture and an encroaching commercialism, is nowhere more powerfully articulated.” Read More→
Here is a tribute to the women who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in chronological order, starting from the most recent. Note, we need to update this list to include recent recipients: Annie Emaux (2022), Louise Glück (2020), and Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk-Fingas (2018).
The Nobel Prize in Literature has arguably become the most prestigious literary prize, awarded annually since 1901. It is given to an author from any country who, in the words of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, created “in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.”
The Nobel Prize has been awarded to some 894 men (as of 2023), and around 60 women in all fields combined since its inception in 1895. Seventeen of the women achieved this honor in literature. Above right, Doris Lessing receiving her award in 2007. Read More→
There are times when you take more interest in a poet or an author after you read her obituary. This is what happened with Meena Alexander, whom I had read in passing but devoured in great detail, especially after I heard that she had succumbed to cancer on November 21, 2018 in New York.
Meena could be termed an international poet as she was of Indian origins, born in Allahabad in 1951 and raised in Kerala, India before the family moved to Sudan.
Meena finally made the U.S. and New York City her home, where she was a professor of English and Women’s Studies at City University of New York and Hunter College. Read More→
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee continues to be one of the most frequently taught novels in American high schools and is beloved by readers of all persuasions. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book has sold more than forty million copies and has been translated into some forty languages.
After a gap of fifty-six years, the 2016 publication of Go Set a Watchman set off a fervor of renewed interest in the famously private (though not, as myth would have it, reclusive) author.
No wonder, then, that Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, draws thousands of visitors each year who arrive to pay homage to her literary legacy. Read More→
