Elena Poniatowska

During her more than six decades as writer and journalist, Mexican author Elena Poniatowska Amor (Paris, 1932) has published over forty books encompassing a myriad of genres as well as hundreds of newspaper articles and interviews with many of Mexico’s most important cultural figures. She is the winner of multiple literary awards, including the National Journalism Prize, the first woman to receive the distinction, the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, which she rejected on principled grounds, the Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize, the Biblioteca Breve Prize, the Alfaguara Novel Prize, and, most recently, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Spanish language’s most prestigious literary prize. The recipient of dozens of honorary degrees and cultural and humanitarian awards, Poniatowska has devoted her life to giving voice to the voiceless. Now 87, she continues to write a weekly column for La Jornada newspaper and is completing work on a novel based on the Poniatowski, the Polish noble family from which she is descended. She lives in Mexico City with her housekeeper Martina and her cats Monsi and Vais.