Angelina Acuña

María Angelina Acuña Sagastume de Castañeda (31 January 1905 – 14 June 2006) was a Guatemalan writer of prose and poetry. A major poetry figure in her country, she was especially known for her rigor in managing classical verse within the sonnet. The writer Margarita Carrera called Acuña the "sister in spirit of Gabriela Mistral".

Biography María Angelina Acuña Sagastume de Castañeda was born in Jutiapa to Francisco Acuña and Adela Sagastume de Acuña.

She moved to Guatemala City where she studied to become a teacher of Primary Education. She earned a Bachelor of Science and Letters at Instituto Normal Central para Señoritas Belén. After graduating, she worked in teaching institutes such as Instituto Normal Central para Señoritas Belén and the Instituto Nacional Centroamérica (INCA).

She participated in many poetry contests, winning numerous awards, as a means to open the door to publishing and her skillful use of language helped her succeed and gain recognition a society which still mostly believed that men's intelligence was superior to women's.

Unlike some of her fellow Guatemalan female writers, like Elisa Hall de Asturias who gave up writing due to the then-prevalent misogyny, or Magdalena Spínola who faced ostracism during the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico Castañeda, Acuña was able to manipulate language and use poetic forms to address the culture without appearing to be a threat. Rather than promoting the heroic fatherland united under "Father God", Acuña celebrated her nationalism by employing imagery of mother earth's fertility to evoke both pride in her homeland and address the patriarchy of her times without explicit confrontation.

In 1938, she participated in an anthology called Colección lila with Olga Violeta Luna de Marroquín, María del Pilar de Garcia, and Magdalena Spínola, which was Central America's first women's poetry collection, both written and published by women. She founded and directed for several literary journals throughout her career

Death Acuña died at the age of 101 in her home in her native Jutiapa, Guatemala.

Awards 1960 Woman of the Americas by the Pan American Union of Women in New York

Selected works La gavilla de Ruth (1938) Ofrenda Lirica a Guatemala (1939) Para que duerma un indito (1952) Fiesta de Luciérnagas (1953) Madre Américas (1960) El llamado de la cumbre (1960) Canto de amor en latitud marina (1968) Elogio del soneto (1999)