For Hispanic Heritage month, I’ve been reflecting on how hard it was for me to find a voice like mine- a female voice – in Latin literature when I was growing up.
Latin America has had highly gifted writers, and I devoured Magical Realism books, which felt so intimate and familiar to me. Reading 100 Years of Solitude was like hearing the story of my own family and how they treated spiritualism and even the paranormal like an everyday reality.
But it wasn’t until my teens, when I was old enough to browse through libraries and explore literature outside the school curriculum, when I started discovering female writers and poets. I was hooked on Isabel Allende’s lyrical prose, but the author who struck me the most was Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a highly talented Mexican nun who left the world a legacy of poems.
Not only were her poems beautiful to read, but for teenage me, it was especially inspirational to see a young woman who had stood up against the standards of her time to make a mark. In this short video, I read one of her sonnets in its original Spanish.
I’m thrilled to see so many talented female writers of Latinx heritage making a mark with both English and Spanish-language work, such as Mexican Gothic, The Poet X or Sabrina and Corina. If you’re on Instagram, I recommend following these accounts:
@Irisbooklist
@latinxpublishing
@alegriamagazine
@lalistapodcast
@spanglishvoces
@lasmusasbooks
@LatinxReadtoo
@Lupita.reads
And follow me on @aliceswritingstory on Instagram for more inspirational thoughts and recos. Happy reading!
My Writing Story 