Gloria Gervitz

Gloria Gervitz, born on March 29, 1943, in Mexico City, was a Mexican and Ashkenazi Jewish poet and translator. In 1976, and spanning for forty-four years, Gervitz authored her book-length poem Migraciones (Libros de la Resistencia, 2020), which was translated into English by Mark Schafer in in Migrations: Poem, 1976–2020 (NYRB Poets, 2021). 

The epic, written in free verse, unfolds from the individual and collective memories of Ashkenazi women who emigrated to Mexico. It spans two thousand years of poetry, moving from the oracles of ancient Greece to the markets of contemporary Mexico, weaving together Jewish and Catholic liturgies while reclaiming her voice and erotic power through verse.

In 1986, Gervitz was awarded the Fernando Jeno Award, the international prize for Jewish literature given by the Jewish community of Mexico, for her poetry collection Fragmento de ventana. In 2011, Gervitz was awarded the PEN Mexico Prize for Literary Excellence, and in 2019, she won the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize, given by the Chilean Ministry of Cultures. 

Gervitz died on April 19, 2022, in San Diego.