Motivos
Subtitle
The Life of St. Francis
Translated by Elizabeth Horan
“In this superb critical edition, Horan has collected, edited, and translated the various prose texts that Gabriela Mistral devoted to St. Francis, a figure of utmost importance to the deeply religious poet and to the spirituality of Latin American literature and art. The inspired translation of Mistral´s idiosyncratic Spanish prose into English captures the rhythm and the delicate, lyrical quality of the original, a feat made even more admirable by the addition of an elucidating and comprehensive critical afterword. This is the definitive edition of a work that had yet to be presented in its entirety in such an organized and illuminating way.” —Santiago Daydí-Tolson, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Bio
Award-winning editor and translator Elizabeth Horan is a professor of English at Arizona State University. She has written extensively about Latin American women writers, with special emphasis on Chilean authors.
Praise for this book
... Motivos provides a window into the literary, political, religious, and personal dynamics that shaped Gabriela Mistral's dramatic career trajectory from humble schoolteacher to Nobel Laureate. Horan's engaging afterword illuminates the presentist concerns that underlie Mistral's extended meditation on St. Francis's exemplary life. This edition is a boon to Mistral scholars.
Claire F. Fox The University of Iowa
In a scholarly yet eminently readable afterword that invites us to take another look at the Gabriela Mistral we thought we knew, Horan sensitively and convincingly reframes key questions about Mistral's attitude toward religion; her social and literary ideals; her sense of class and national belonging (or not); her ideas about education; her sexuality; and her complex relationships with peers, mentors, and loved ones. Queerly fascinating! A must-read for Mistral acólitos and lay readers alike.
Susana Chávez-Silverman Pomona College
