Today’s Video: Isabel Allende

We end this week’s video theme of Latin American women and literature with Chilean author Isabel Allende.

“The House of the Spirits”, “Of Love and Shadows”, and “City of the Beasts” are just a few of the novels written by Allende who is certainly one of the best-known novelists in all the Americas. In 1996 Allende created a foundation in honor of her daughter, and Allende became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2003.

The video is from Allende’s appearance at the 2007 TED conference; her impassioned speech calls for us to stop the injustices against women and to become more active in changing the world for the better.

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Previous videos this week:

• Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni
• Mexican "Renaissance woman" Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
• Dominican author Julia Alvarez

Sources- isabelallende.com, Wikipedia, Google Video, Isabel Allende, TED

Today’s Video: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

The phrase “Renaissance man” is used to describe people who are experts in many fields of knowledge. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz would certainly fit this description; the 17^th-cenutry nun was one of the most influential authors and minds in Latin American history. Though she was a controversial figure in her time for outspokenness and feminism, she has become revered in modern times.

Below is a video narrating one of Sor Juana’s most famous poems – Hombres necios (“Stubborn men”). In it, she blasts the sexism of her era and including the moral double standards towards prostitution (“Who is most to blame…the one who pays for sin or the one who sins for pay?”)

In honor of International Women’s Day, this week’s videos will look at famous Latin American women in literature. On Monday we focused on Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni.

Sources- Las Mujeres, Wikipedia, YouTube, The Latin Americanist