Central America

Beatriz Badikian-Gartler was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has lived in the Chicago area for more than 40 years. She is the author of Unveiling the Mind (2014, Pandora lobo estepario Press...

Gloria Gervitz was born in Mexico City, Mexico, where she lived for most of her life. In 2011, she moved to San Diego, residing there until her death on April 19, 2022. Gervitz studied art history at the Universidad...

Poet, essayist, and journalist Roque Dalton grew up in San Salvador, El Salvador. He studied at the University of Santiago, Chile, and the University of San Salvador. His poetry collections include El Mar/...

Uruguayan poet, translator, essayist, literary critic, and lyricist Idea Vilariño was part of a group of writers called the Generación del ’45 (“Generation of ’45”), and she remains a key figure in Latin American...

Ernesto Cardenal was born in Granada, Nicaragua and attended both the University of Mexico and Columbia University in New York City. A former Catholic priest who studied in Kentucky with the scholar, poet,...

Ramón García is a poet, writer, and scholar. Born in Colima, Mexico, and raised in Modesto, California, García earned a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a PhD from the University of California...

Born in Buenos Aires, Ana Arzoumanian is a professor, critic, translator, lawyer, genocide scholar, and a celebrated poet. She is the author of numerous works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. The first...

Born in Mexico City in 1949, David Huerta is regarded as one of the leading Mexican poets of his generation. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including El Jardín de la luz and El correo ...

Dr. Alan Pelaez Lopez is an Afro-Indigenous poet; an installation and adornment artist from Oaxaca, México; and a 2022 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. Lopez’s debut visual poetry collection...

Homero Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoacán, Mexico. One of Mexico’s foremost poets and novelists, he is also an environmental activist and a diplomat. A former ambassador to the Netherlands, Switzerland...

Nicanor Parra was one of the most important Latin American poets of the 20th century, heralded for his biting, ironic, lucid style—what he called “anti-poetry.” Parra claimed poetry as a colloquial, irreverent...

Poet and translator Carlos Germán Belli was born in Lima, Peru, to Italian parents. He earned his doctorate from the National University of San Marcos. Often described as one of the most original poets of ...

Félix Rubén García Sarmiento was born in Metapa, Nicaragua. A poet, journalist, and diplomat, Darío is considered the father of Modernismo, the Spanish language literary and cultural movement that gained sway...

Mariela Griffor was born in the city of Concepcion in southern Chile. She attended the University of Santiago and the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is the author of House (Mayapple Press, 2007...

Avant-garde poet Vicente Huidobro was born to an aristocratic family in Santiago, Chile. He is known as the creator and exponent of the literary movement called Creationism (Creacionismo), which combined aspects...

Lucha Corpi was born in Jáltipan, Mexico. As a young woman, she trained to be a dentist before immigrating to the United States in 1964 with her husband, who was enrolled at the University of California–Berkeley...

Alejandra Pizarnik was born in Buenos Aires to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of Buenos Aires before dropping out to pursue painting and her own poetry...

Raúl Niño was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and grew up in the lower Rio Grande Valley, along the Texas gulf coast, and in the Chicago area. He is the author of Breathing Light (March Abrazo Press, 1991) and ...

Angélica Freitas’s poems have been translated and published in German, Spanish, and English. She coedits the poetry journal Modo de Usar & Co. and lives in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Poet Javier Zamora was born in the small El Salvadoran coastal fishing town of La Herradura and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine, joining his parents in California. He earned a BA at the ...