Nancy Morejón

Nancy Morejón is an Afro-Cuban poet, translator, essayist, and critic. The first Black woman recipient of Cuba’s National Prize for Literature (2001), she was also awarded the 2006 Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Award and the 1986 Critic’s Prize for Piedra Pulida (approximately translated “Polished Stone”; Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1986).

Morejón’s diverse body of work includes journalism, criticism, and drama, as well as a comprehensive study on poet Nicolás Guillén. Focusing on Afro Cuban identity, her poetry explores themes of ethnicity, gender, history, and politics. She is the author of several poetry collections, including With Eyes and Soul: Images of Cuba (White Pine Press, 2004), translated by Pamela Carmell and David Frye, with photographs by Milton Rogovin; Looking Within/Mirar Adentro: Selected Poems, 1954–2000 (Wayne State University Press, 2003), edited by Juanamaríia Cordones-Cook; Poetas del mundo Latino en Tlaxcala (approximately translated “Poets of the Latin World in Tlaxcala”; Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, 1988); and Amor, ciudad atribuída (approximately translated “Love, City Attributed”; Ediciones El Puente, 1964). Morejón’s work has been translated into numerous languages and is featured in the anthology Daughters of Africa (Pantheon, 1992), edited by Margaret Busby. She serves as the director of Revista Unión, a journal of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and was elected president of UNEAC’s writer’s section in 2008.

Morejón has lectured and taught extensively in the United States and abroad, including at Wellesley College and the University of Missouri. She graduated with honors from the University of Havana, where she studied Caribbean and French literature. She is a translator of French and English into Spanish, including work by writers such as Aimé Césaire, Jacques Roumain, and Edouard Glissant. Morejón directs the Caribbean Studies Center at Casa de las Américas, Havana.