Mexicanas and Chicanas

Abstract

Elena Poniatowska, Mexico's leading woman writer and journalist, gave thefollowing lecture at Hampshire College in thefall of 1991, when she was writer-in-residence at the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts. Her admirationfor Chicana writers has not lessened in the interveningfive years, and, as usual, she has put her money where her mouth is by translating Sandra Cisneros's now-canonical early novel, The House on Mango Street (1989), into Spanish (New York: Vintage, 1994; Mexico City: Alfaguara Literaturas, 1995 [with Juan Antonio Ascencio]. The novel was previously translated and published in Spain in 1992.). I met Sandra Cisneros in 1991 as well, when she gave a memorable reading of Woman Hollering Creek at Mount Holyoke College. Both women have immense charm and humor, and I had the goodfortune to coincide with both of them in Mexico City in January of 1994, just when Elena was finishing her translation of The House on Mango Street. We spent two and a half hours in the lobby of Sandra's hotel, laughing until our sides ached. It was a rare privilege. Elena Poniatowska gave MELUS permission to publish this lecture. It is good to see that some of her remarks then are now out of date, especially when she referred to thefact that no Chicana writer had ever been published in Mexico. She herself has seen to that. Nina M. Scott