Gabriela Mistral
The Audacious Traveler

Gabriela Mistral is the only Latin American woman writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Even so, her extraordinary achievements in poetry, narrative, and political essays remain largely untold. Gabriela Mistral: The Audacious Traveler explores boldly and thoughtfully the complex legacy of Mistral and the way in which her work continues to define Latin America.

Edited by Professor Marjorie Agosín, Gabriela Mistral: The Audacious Traveler addresses for the first time the vision that Mistral conveyed as a representative of Chile during the drafting of the United Nations Human Rights Declaration. It depicts Mistral as a courageous social activist whose art and writings against fascism reveal a passionate voice for freedom and justice.

The book also explores Mistral’s Pan-American vision and her desire to be part of a unified American hemisphere as well as her concern for the Caribbean and Brazil. Readers will learn of her sojourn in Brazil, her turbulent years as consul in Madrid, and, finally, her last days on Long Island.

Students of her poetry, as well as general readers, will find Gabriela Mistral: The Audacious Traveler an insightful collection dedicated to the life and work of an inspiring and original artist.

The contributors are Jonathan Cohen, Joseph R. Slaughter, Verónica Darer, Patricia Varas, Eugenia Muñoz, Darrell B. Lockhart, Ivonne Gordon Vailakis, Santiago Daydí-Tolson, Diana Anhalt, Ana Pizarro, Randall Couch, Patricia Rubio, Elizabeth Horan, Emma Sepúlveda, Luis Vargas Saavedra, and Marie-Lise Gazarian-Gautier.

Marjorie Agosín is the author of A Map of Hope and The Alphabet in My Hands and the editor of Taking Root: Narratives of Jewish Women in Latin America. She is a member of the Spanish Academy of Letters and winner of the Gabriela Mistral Medal of Honor. She is a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College.   More info →