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Barbara F Ichiishi Author & Translator

Gertrudis Gomez De Avellaneda (1814-1873) was an acclaimed Romantic author who was born and raised in Cuba and spent most of her adult life in Spain. A highly successful playwright, novelist, and poet during her lifetime, some of her works were nonetheless denigrated (and even banned in Cuba) for their outspoken feminism and liberal social ideas. A multi-faceted, prolific artist, she is the author of twenty plays (both tragedies and comedies), seven novels and novellas, nine stories and legends, one volume of poetry, four autobiographies and memoirs, and numerous essays and articles. Author of the first anti-slavery/feminist novel in the New World (Sab, 1842), in her works she waged an ardent campaign to promote freedom and justice for the marginalized and oppressed, striving above all for social and economic equality for women.

Barbara F. Ichiishi received a B.A. in French literature from Mount Holyoke College, an M.A. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Spanish from the University of Iowa. She is the author of The Apple of Earthly Love: Female Development in Esther Tusquets’ Fiction, and the translator of some of Tusquets’ major works, including, among others, Never to Return, Seven Views of the Same Landscape, Private Correspondence, and We Had Won the War. She has written articles on Spanish and Latin American women’s literature, and is co-translator of Edouard Glissant’s Monsieur Toussaint. She is based in New Jersey.