This collection of letters chronicles a remarkable, long-term friendship between two women who, despite differences of religion and ethnicity, have followed remarkably parallel paths from their first adolescent meeting in their native Chile to their current lives in exile as writers, academics, and political activists in the United States. Spanning more than thirty years (1966-2000), Agosín's and Sepúlveda's letters speak eloquently on themes that are at once personal and political—family life and patriarchy, women's roles, the loneliness of being a religious or cultural outsider, political turmoil in Chile, and the experience of exile.

Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series)

Agosín, Marjorie

Sepúlveda, Emma

Literature & Fiction

University of Texas Press

History

Broadly based on the theme of human rights in Latin America, Writing Toward Hope is an anthology of contemporary literature―fiction, essays, plays, poems―by some of the most prominent and well-known Latin American writers of the 20th century. Each chapter is devoted to a particular theme, such as torture, exile, and women's roles in Latin America. The selections capture the creativity and expression borne out of the various social and political struggles that took place in Latin America during the 20th century. Writers such as Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende, Nancy Morejón, Jacobo Timerman, Reinaldo Arenas, Elena Poniatowska, and Ariel Dorfman weigh in on issues of human rights and social justice in Latin America today.

Writing Toward Hope: The Literature of Human Rights in Latin America

Yale University Press

Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love tells the story of ordinary women living in terror and extreme poverty under General Pinochet's oppressive rule in Chile (1973-1989). These women defied the military dictatorship by embroidering their sorrow on scraps of cloth, using needles and thread as one of the boldest means of popular protest and resistance in Latin America. The arpilleras they made_patchwork tapestries with scenes of everyday life and memorials to their disappeared relatives_were smuggled out of Chile and brought to the world the story of their fruitless searches in jails, morgues, government offices, and the tribunals of law for their husbands, brothers, and sons. Marjorie Agos'n, herself a native of and exile from Chile, has spent more than thirty years interviewing the arpilleristas and following their work. She knows their stories intimately and knows, too, that none of them has ever found a disappeared relative alive. Even though the dictatorship ended in 1989 and democracy returned to Chile, no full account of the detained and disappeared has ever been offered. Still, many women maintain hope and continue to make arpilleras, both in memory and as art. This new edition of the book, updated for students, includes a reaction to the death of General Pinochet, a chronology of Chile, several new testimonies from arpilleristas in their own words, and an introduction by Peter Kornbluh. It retains a section of full-color plates of arpilleras, an afterword by Peter Winn, and a foreword by Isabel Allende. Students and interested readers will find the arpilleras beautiful, moving, and ultimately hopeful, and the testimonies a powerful way to learn about the history of contemporary Latin America and the arpillera movement in Chile.

Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile

Arts & Photography

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love tells the story of ordinary women living in terror and extreme poverty under General Pinochet's oppressive rule in Chile (1973-1989). These women defied the military dictatorship by embroidering their sorrow on scraps of cloth, using needles and thread as one of the boldest means of popular protest and resistance in Latin America. The arpilleras they made—patchwork tapestries with scenes of everyday life and memorials to their disappeared relatives—were smuggled out of Chile and brought to the world the story of their fruitless searches in jails, morgues, government offices, and the tribunals of law for their husbands, brothers, and sons. Marjorie Agosín, herself a native of and exile from Chile, has spent more than thirty years interviewing the arpilleristas and following their work. She knows their stories intimately and knows, too, that none of them has ever found a disappeared relative alive. Even though the dictatorship ended in 1989 and democracy returned to Chile, no full account of the detained and disappeared has ever been offered. Still, many women maintain hope and continue to make arpilleras, both in memory and as art. This new edition of the book, updated for students, includes a reaction to the death of General Pinochet, a chronology of Chile, several new testimonies from arpilleristas in their own words, and an introduction by Peter Kornbluh. It retains a section of full-color plates of arpilleras, an afterword by Peter Winn, and a foreword by Isabel Allende. Students and interested readers will find the arpilleras beautiful, moving, and ultimately hopeful, and the testimonies a powerful way to learn about the history of contemporary Latin America and the arpillera movement in Chile.

Americas

Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile

This collection of letters chronicles a remarkable, long-term friendship between two women who, despite differences of religion and ethnicity, have followed remarkable parallel paths from their first meeting in their native Chile to their current lives in exile as writers, academics, and political activists in the United States.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Isis Large Print Books

Women, Children, And Human Rights In Latin America

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Routledge

Marjorie Agosín writes of a beloved childhood nanny: "Since I was Jewish she baptized me with holy water brought forth from the fonts of nearby churches. She told me to stay very still so I wouldn't sprout horns. . . . I was somewhere between taciturn and happy gazing into the mirror as if approaching the edge of a cliff . . . and I watched myself in the deep, transparent veil of this night of all nights." Many of the themes expressed in this vignette—cultural dissonance, family, and community—are poetically intertwined throughout The Alphabet in My Hands. Agosín takes us on a personal journey of discovery that is as much internal reflection as it is an exodus across continents and decades.
Agosín's childhood and early adolescence were spent with her Jewish family in Chile. While her family raised her to regard her Jewish heritage with loving awareness, they also participated in the dominant Catholic culture—an aunt organized Easter egg hunts and her mother admired the beauty of Chile's Catholic churches. The young Agosín became keenly aware of her dual identity in her country, both as a participant and an outsider.
The second half of The Alphabet in My Hands recounts the events that forced her family to emigrate to America: the overthrow of Salvador Allende by General Augusto Pinochet. Agosín writes of her new life in Athens, Georgia, of the sudden loss of all that was familiar. Ostracized as an emigrant—a "non-white" with a strange foreign accent—her high school years were made even more painful by the news from Chile: prisoners taken and classmates disappearing or shot.
Years later, Agosín goes back to Chile and she travels there with her own children. As she stares down at her old homeland from the plane, she writes: "Why do I love this place that forced us into exile, that punished my father for being a Jew?" And in the final chapter of The Alphabet in My Hands, this award-winning poet addresses two important topics: her current residence in New England and the central role of writing and literature in her life.

The Alphabet in My Hands: A Writing Life

Arts & Literature

Rutgers University Press

The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile. It was also a defining moment in the life of writer Marjorie Agosín. This collection of prose vignettes and free verse draws upon her experiences as a child in Chile, an expatriate abroad, and a minority Jew—even in the land she calls home—to create a striking portrait of a life of exile. The tone of the book varies as it lyrically explores the geography of Chile and weaves into it the themes of exile and oppression. At times the words become hymns to the physical beauty of her country, evoking the grandeur of this land extending to the southernmost tip of the world. At times they are intimate and melancholy, exploring personal and familial history through miniature portraits that reveal the pain of being different. Finally the tone becomes angry as she denounces the injustices committed against her friends and against the families of the disappeared during the seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Combining themes of memory, childhood, minority issues, Judaism, and political oppression, this collection contains some of Agosín’s strongest work. Of Earth and Sea is a poetic autobiography that explores the world of Chile with eyes that see both despair and hope.

Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir (Camino del Sol)

University of Arizona Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Agosín, Marjorie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Agosín, Marjorie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Agosín, Marjorie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series)

Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series)

Writing Toward Hope: The Literature of Human Rights in Latin America

Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile

Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile

Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile

Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile

Women, Children, And Human Rights In Latin America

The Alphabet in My Hands: A Writing Life

Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir (Camino del Sol)