Marjorie Agosín

Marjorie Agosín was born in Chile in 1955. She began writing poetry as a child, and after her family moved to Athens, Georgia, in 1969, she continued to write poems in Spanish. She received a BA from the University of Georgia and an MA and PhD from Indiana University.

Agosín is the author of numerous poetry collections, including At the Threshold of Memory: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2003); Toward the Splendid City (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1994), winner of the 1995 Latino Literature Prize; and Sargasso (White Pine Press, 1993). Isabel Allende writes, “Agosín’s poetic language engages the reader in a mesmerizing journey of inward reflection and exile.”

Agosín, who writes primarily in Spanish, frequently invokes themes of displacement and immigration in her poetry. In an interview with Blackbird, she says, “I feel that I don’t belong. I feel like a stranger, which is very good for a poet, to feel like a stranger.”

Agosín is also the author of several works of prose, including A Cross and a Star: Memoirs of a Jewish Girl in Chile (University of New Mexico Press, 1995) and I Lived on Butterfly Hill (Atheneum Books, 2015), winner of the 2015 International Latino Book Award in young adult fiction.

A human rights activist, Agosín is known for her work promoting social justice and feminism. In 1998, she received a United Nations Leadership Award for Human Rights, and in 2002, she was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Award for Life Achievement by the Chilean government. A recipient of Spain’s prestigious Letras de Oro prize, Agosín is a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College. She lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts.