I’d like to urge you to put this on your calendar and attend. Marjorie is a wonderful, moving speaker. She will be speaking about her life as a writer and activist and as a Jewish Chilean who had to flee Chile as a teenager for life in America.
I’ve listed just a very few of Marjorie’s 30+ published (and many award-winning) books below. She has won awards for poetry, fiction, memoir, and for her scholarly work, which ranges across the fields of women’s studies, Latina literature, Latin American studies, Jewish studies, and human rights. Take a look at Amazon for more (even Amazon doesn’t have all of them).
The Light of Desire: La Luz del Deseo
Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir
Among the Angels of Memory (a book about her grandmother fleeing the Holocaust for Chile)
Alphabet in My Hands: A Writing Life
Secrets in the Sand: The Young Women of Juarez
Dear Anne Frank ( a stunning poetic dialogue/response to Anne Frank)
Brujas y algo mas: Witches and Other Things
Always From Somewhere Else (memoir of her father)
Toward the Splendid City
Scraps of Life: Chilean Arpilleras
A Cross and A Star (memoir of her mother’s life as a girl in Chile during World War II)
Circles Of Madness: Mothers Of The Plaza De Mayo
Tapestries Of Hope, Threads Of Love (the life of women under the Pinocet dictatorship)
Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir just won the International Latino Book Award for biography. The award committee had this to say about the book: "The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile. It was also a defining moment in the life of writer Marjorie Agosín. This collection of prose vignettes and free verse draws upon her experiences as a child in Chile, an expatriate abroad, and a minority Jew—even in the land she calls home—to create a striking portrait of a life of exile. The tone of the book varies as it lyrically explores the geography of Chile and weaves into it the themes of exile and oppression. At times the words become hymns to the physical beauty of her country, evoking the grandeur of this land extending to the southernmost tip of the world. At times they are intimate and melancholy, exploring personal and familial history through miniature portraits that reveal the pain of being different. Finally the tone becomes angry as she denounces the injustices committed against her friends and against the families of the disappeared during the seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Combining themes of memory, childhood, minority issues, Judaism, and political oppression, this collection contains some of Agosín’s strongest work. Of Earth and Sea is a poetic autobiography that explores the world of Chile with eyes that see both despair and hope. "
I’ve posted the Library’s announcement with RSVP link below:
Marjorie Agosín - Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir
Monday, October 4, 2010
6:30pm @ Central Library
The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile. It was also a defining moment in the life of writer Marjorie Agosín. In Of Earth and Sea, she draws upon her experiences as a child in Chile, an expatriate abroad, and a minority Jew—even in the land she calls home—to create a striking portrait of a life of exile. Agosín is a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College. Her appearance is co-sponsored by the Latino Writers Collective as part of the Library's observance of Hispanic Heritage Month. The book will be available for sale.
Marjorie will also appear at KU on October 5th at 7:00 p.m. in the Centennial Room of the Kansas Union. This event is co-sponsored by KU’s Departments of English, Spanish and Portuguese, Latin American Studies, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
I hope you’ll take advantage of one of these opportunities to hear and meet one of the remarkable women of our time.
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