Margarita Carrera

Margarita Carrera Molina (16 September 1929 – 31 March 2018) was a Guatemalan philosopher, professor and writer. She was a member of the Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua and the 1996 laureate of the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature.

Early life

Margarita Carrera Molina was born 16 September 1929 in Guatemala City to Frenchman Antonio Carrera Martello and Josefina Molina Llardén. Her father committed suicide when she was a child and she had to work to help support her family, going to night school to learn. She was the first female graduate in Literature from Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala in 1957.

Career From 1957 she was employed as a university professor at her alma mater, as well as Rafael Landívar University and Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. She was a lecturer at the Autonomous University of Madrid and served as guest writer on numerous international congresses held in Costa Rica, France, Germany, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sweden, the US and Venezuela.

Carrera joined the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, IA in 1982. She wrote two columns at Prensa Libre weekly, in addition to having published twenty books. In 1996, she was awarded the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature.

Awards 1981 Golden Quetzal for "Ensayos contra reloj" 1982 First Prize in poetry for "Mujer y soledades" from Juegos Florales Centroamericanos y de Panamá, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala Hacia un nuevo humanismo Guatemala: Editorial Artemis-Edinter (1996) (In Spanish) Antología personal Guatemala: Editorial Cultura (1997) (In Spanish) Ensayos sobre Borges Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria (1999) (In Spanish)

Theater El circo: farsátira en un acto Guatemala: Editorial Escolar Piedra Santa (1975) (In Spanish)