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by Marjorie Agosín
"Once again Marjorie Agosin has given the world a book of poetry that
is both awesomely beautiful and painfully disturbing. A travelogue through
the Atacama Desert, (the real desert as well as the desert of the human soul),
where Chilean mothers searched for their disappeared children during the
rein of Agosto Pinoche, this is a book to be wept over in candle lit rooms.
Presented, as always, with the Spanish original alongside the English trans-
lation, I am forced, as an English speaker, to rely on the accuracy of Celeste
Kostopolus-Cooperman's translation, but given the sheer force and depth of
the language here I can only believe that this is a just translation. Marjorie Agosín is a poet, writer, critic, and human rights activist. The descendant of European
Jews who escaped the Holocaust and settled in Chile, she was born in Bethesda, Maryland and
raised in Santiago, Chile. She has been in exile from Chile since Pinochet's dictatorship rose to
power. She obtained her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1982 and is a Professor of Spanish at
Wellesley College. In 1990 she received the Jeanneta Rankin Award for Achievement in Human
Rights. In 1995 she was awarded the Letra D'Oro Prize and the Latina Literature Prize.
Her recent titles include Dear Anne Frank (Brandeis University Press, 1998), Tapestries of Hope, Threads
of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile 1974-1994 (University of New Mexico Press, 1996), Starry
Night (White Pine Press, 1996), Circles of Madness : Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (White Pine Press, 1992). |