Background

Ethnicity: Morejón's father is of African heritage and her mother of Chinese, European and African extraction.

Nancy Morejón was born on 7 August 1944, in Havana to Angélica Hernández and Felipe Morejón.

Education

In 1961, Morejón received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from the University of Havana.

Career

Morejon was qualified to work as an English teacher at the age of fifteen. After graduating with honors from the Universidad de la Habana, she taught French at the Academia Gustavo Ameijeiras, and also worked as a translator for Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior. She also lectured at universities throughout the country and has served as teacher at Wellesley College and the University of Missouri.

Morejon has held several other jobs, including work as a theater critic, a journalist, and an editor for Union de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba. As a translator, she has translated into Spanish the works of Airne Cesaire, Rene Depestre, Paul Éluard, June Jordan, Anthony Phelps, and Jacques Roumain.

Achievements

• Nancy Morejon is known as a major Cuban author who writes poetry and essays. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages, including English, Swedish and German. One of the most notable is her book-length treatments of poet Nicolás Guillén.
  
  Morejon was a recipient of the Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Award. In 1982 she was awarded the Cuban "Premio de la crítica" (Critic's Prize) for Piedra Pulida, and in 2001 won Cuba's National Prize for Literature, awarded for the first time to a black woman.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Looking Within/Mirar adentro

    (This panoramic anthology, selected from ten volumes of Mo...)

  • Homing Instincts/Querencias

    (The theme of the collection is love, in all its forms—fro...)

    2014
  • With Eyes and Soul: Images of Cuba

    (Milton Rogovin traveled to Cuba twice in the mid-1980s to...)

    2004
  • Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing

    (These poems by Nancy Morejon are the voice of the new Cub...)

    1985
  • Black Woman and other Poems

    (Nancy Morejón's single most complete collection of poetry...)

    2001
  • Letters of Love & Hope: The Story of the Cuban Five 2005

Views

Themes in Morejon’s poetry run from love to rebellion and from slavery to social criticism. Much of her work is concerned with her native Cuba.

According to Morejon, Cuba and Cuban literature is too often ignored by the rest of the world. One of Morejon’s most popular poems, “Mujer Negra” (“Black Woman”), is a poetic treatment of poverty, slavery, and the connections that black women have due to shared experiences.

Quotations: “How can they measure the esthetic quality of literature that they gag and distort; literature embargoed as is our sugar. They do all they can to silence us and, in fact, know little about what we are producing.”

Membership

In 2008 Morejon was elected president of the writer's section of the Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC).

Personality

Morejon is fluent in French and English.

Connections

Father:

Felipe Morejón

Mother:

Angélica Hernández

References

• Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology
  1996