Agosin and Levison weave inspirational stories about intrepid women travelers - very well-written, insightful, and lovely.

Prof. Agosin is a well known writer on Latin America. This book poetically describes the transformative experience of travelling through the eyes of a varied group of women.

"Miriam's Daughters: Jewish Latin American Women Poets," edited by Marjorie Agosin, is an impressive anthology. This book is a bilingual edition; the Spanish or Portuguese originals and their English translations are on facing pages. Twenty-nine poets from all over Latin America are represented here. Among the authors included are Jacqueline Goldberg (Venezuela), Sarina Helfgott (Peru), Alicia Kozameh (Argentina), Teresa Porzecanski (Uruguay), Leonor Scliar-Cabral (Brazil), and Ana Maria Shua (Argentina).

Editor Agosin contributes a fascinating forward (in English) in which she reflects on the "Babel of whispers, songs, prayers, and languages" she encountered growing up in Chile. Some of the subjects explored by the poets in this book include family ties, multi- and bilingualism, Jewish ritual, and the legacy of the Holocaust. Figures from Jewish history, myth, and legend often appear: Anne Frank, Ruth, Lilith, the Golem.

There are many fine poems in this anthology, but my favorites are the following: Schlomit Baytelman's "My Name is Schlomit," Diana Anhalt's historically allusive "That Jewish Crusader," Rosita Kalina's Whitmanesque "I Am of the Tribe of Yehuda," and Angelina Muniz Huberman's mystical "The Cabalists." This book is a wonderful resource for those interested in multiculturalism, Jewish studies, Latin American literature, or contemporary poetry.

Agosin has done it again---provided an insider's tour of Jewish Latin America through the eyes of the poets. Here is poetry that is lively, poetically accomplished, and in a much needed bilingual format. What a treasure! Strongly recommended.

What emerges is an affecting portrait, through one family and related self, of the misunderstood Jew in Chile (and South America). This very eloquent personal account is moving, documentary, lyrical, occasionally melodramatic, seductive and yet, sturdy. The author is a poet who gives remarkable attention to detail. Obstacles as early as in childhood stimulated her imaginary mind which continues to be poetic, creative and immersed in writing, to which Agosín always brings her personal self. Her grandparents from Russia lived in Turkey, and moved to France where her father was born; then they sailed to Chile where they encountered anti-Semitism. Her story reflects what we know from experience: that the point of crises and calamities is not to frighten or beat is into submission or failure, but to encourage us to change, to allow us to heal and grow. Following my first reading, I will savor this book again. I also, highly recommend, HOTEL BOLIVIA by Leo Spitzer (Professor at Dartmouth) about Jewish immigration in Bolivia; much personal experience is shared here. Agosín has been a professor of Spanish Literature at Wellesley Collegefor many years. She has written extensively on contemporary Chilean literature and culture. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, son and daughter.

Agosin creates yet another beautiful piece of literature in "Always from Somewhere Else." Her emotional and thought-provoking style provides the reader with an incredible inside view of Jewish life in Chile. A duet of pain and beauty, Agosin's memoir of her father's life is vivid and alive. This story, one of lost and newfound identity has the strong possibility of being close to us all. This book is a definite candidate for everyone's personal library of favorites.

This is a touching collection of poems that will teach and horrify the reader. I recommend it to anyone with a desire to see what happens when human rights violations are considered the "norm."

"Dear Anne Frank" is a volume of poems about the young Jewish girl who, after her death during the Nazi Holocaust, became immortalized through the publication of her recovered diary. The author, Marjorie Agosin, is the descendant of European Jews who escaped the Holocaust; Agosin was raised in Chile. This is a bilingual edition, with Agosin's Spanish poems and the English translations on facing pages. Richard Schaaf is the primary translator, with additional translation done by Cola Franzen and Monica Bruno.

The book also includes Agosin's fascinating introductory essay, "Anne Frank or the Landscape Uprooted" (both in Spanish and in English translation). In this essay Agosin draws connections between the Nazi Holocaust and the atrocities committed under certain Latin American dictatorships.

Agosin's poems are somber and lean. Her voice is at times angry, at times compassionate, at times even a little wistful. She explores Anne Frank's role as young woman, as martyr, as writer, and as iconic figure. This is an important volume for those interested in Latin American literature, Holocaust studies, 20th century poetry, or Jewish studies.

By reading the translations you have a better understanding and felling of the author Gabrielle true meaning. It is put in a simple formula for a first time poetry reader or a person who reads a lot of peotry to appreciate the poems. "To the clouds and to see him again", bring you into the poem.

I like the poetry's modernized spelling and format. It helps the modern reader to understand the text. The poems are full of meaning, helpful and have a positive effect on readers. My favorites poems are "The Wild Strawberry," "Rocking," "Flour," "Morning" and "The Rose." The selected works of "A Gabriela Mistral Reader" is an enjoyable experience for students and people who love poetry. I would highly recommend this book to everyone because her poem shows real life situations that we have in today's world; they describe the importance of nature and have deep feeling about women and from nature. Jacketti translates her poems very beautifully.

Just by reading "A Reader" by Gabriela Mistral one is able to experience the beauty of artistical language. Mistral's message to her readers depicts her real attitude toward life and how confidence she is of her profound feelings. Hungry readers will find satisfaction by understanding Mistral's content and enriching their cultural background. Mistral's word in "A Reader" is sufficient to open one's mind to see a different horizon. One will be able to find new ways to express sentiments that have been hidden in our hearts

An engrossing and sensitive book in dialogue form between Marjorie Agosin, a Chilean woman living in the United States and teaching at Wellesley College and other educated Jewish women who have emigrated to the United States from Europe,Cuba, Chile and other countries. The joys and difficulties of adjusting to a new culture, the feeling of "otherness" both in their homeland and in their new homes are explored and described in a meaningful way. I felt the thoughtfulness and personality of each participant as they answered the questions asked by the interviewer.

UNCERTAIN TRAVELERS: Conversations with Jewish Women Immigrants to America by Marjorie Agosin 214 pages; University Press of New England

"I am certain that my early beginnings and the paths I traveled . . . have opened my heart to the misery and pain of others," says Katherine Scherzer Wenger in conversation with Marjorie Agosin in her book UNCERTAIN TRAVELERS. Wenger, born in Romania in 1950, arrived in New York in 1963 and is now a psychotherapist in Boston. Although her family survived World War II and she was born after the war was over, that struggle for survival still dominates her life. "Though not having directly gone through the Holocaust, I believe that the reverberations of that event resonate in our soul if not in our conscious mind," she says. "There is still a longing in me to find a meaningful way of living a Jewish life." It is this experience of exile and identity that Agosin explores in her mesmerizing account of her discussions with nine amazingly perceptive Jewish women immigrants to the United States. These women arrived in this country from Europe and Latin America between 1939 and the 1970s and each has become stellar in her chosen field despite daunting odds. Yet no matter how far they have traveled from their roots, their past colors their perceptions of the present. "I think the way many immigrants experience their lives is that they leave things behind. And once they leave the thing behind, it somehow disappears." says Susan Rubin Suleiman who was born in Budapest in 1939 and came to this country in 1950. "I think you have to be able to return and discover that those things don't disappear. People don't die just because you leave them." Suleiman is now a Professor of Romance and Comparative Literatures at Harvard and author of several books. Yet she is determined to preserve her memories. "We move on and yet maintain the connection to the past that we have now reestablished, or are trying to reestablish," she says. Agosin's own background makes her eminently suited to undertake the challenge of revealing the diverse experiences of exile. Although she was born in Maryland, her family returned to Chile before she was a year old and stayed there until they immigrated to Athens, Georgia in 1971. Agosin, a poet and writer who has published several previous books is now a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College. "Uncertain Travelers is a book of conversations with women like myself," says Agosin. "Educated Jewish women with complex itineraries who have traveled much and landed at last in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century." The main theme of this book is the challenges in each woman's journey from one culture to another. They discuss food, friendship, work, language, writing, anti-Semitism and politics with penetrating wisdom and each interview reflects the very personal response of the traveler to her own distinct set of experiences. The initial discussion is with Zezette Larsen, who recalls hiding from the Nazi's in a Catholic convent in Belgium, her deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau and her eventual move to New York City in 1951. Despite barriers that would have defeated a lesser personality, Larsen managed to earn a masters degree in social work at Rutgers, spend time in Israel and then move to Massachusetts where she became the executive director of Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly in Newton. When she discusses her future now that she is in her late sixties she says, "I think there is a whole world out there that we have to take care of. And that, it really is so much easier not to, and to close your eyes. But that is so dangerous." The book launches the Brandies Series on Jewish women sponsored by the International Research Institute on Jewish Women. This series plans to illuminate the challenges and achievements of Jewish women throughout history. If Marjorie Agosin's book UNCERTAIN TRAVELERS is any indication of the quality of this project, it will be an invaluable contribution to the body of literature we have reflecting the contributions of Jewish women throughout history.

"An Absence of Shadows," by Marjorie Agosin, is a significant volume by this important Chilean author. "Absence" contains the texts of two previously published volumes (1988's "Zones of Pain" and 1992's "Circles of Madness"), together with new work. The poems have been translated into English by Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman, Cola Franzen, and Mary G. Berg. The book is presented in bilingual format, with the Spanish originals and English versions on facing pages.

In her preface, Agosin explains that this book commemorates the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Agosin notes in the preface that poets "have become the voices that ask for compassion for the voiceless victims. They see beauty amidst the horror and find the courage to speak against injustice." The poems in this book exemplify this mission.

Some of the most striking selections in this book include "The Obedient Girl," about a girl who encounters the general who tortured her family; "The President," a bitter satire of military dictatorship; "El Salvador," the story of a Jewish woman from that troubled nation; and "Anne Frank and Us," in which the speaker notes that the iconic title figure "visits me often." I recommend this book to those interested in women's studies, Latin American literature, Spanish language poetry, or human rights issues.