Margit Frenk

Margarita Ana María Frenk y Freund (21 August 1925 – 21 November 2025), sometimes known by her married name Margit Frenk Alatorre or as Margit Frenk Freund, was a German-Mexican philologist, folklorist and translator born in Hamburg, Germany. She was a member of the Mexican Academy of Language from 1993 until her death. She was also a Doctor Honoris Causa at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Life and career Frenk's Jewish parents moved the family from Germany to Mexico in 1930 as the Nazis gained power. Her mother was Mariana Frenk-Westheim, a writer of Spanish-Mexican prose, hispanist, lecturer in literature, museum expert and translator. Her father was Ernst Frenk, a physician. After he died, Frenk's mother remarried, to Paul Westheim, another German Jewish refugee.

In 1946, she spent some time at Bryn Mawr College in the United States on a scholarship, studying English literature and Spanish theater of the 16th century. This was followed by a few years at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught Spanish, learned Italian and studied Spanish literature.

She was a professor at UNAM from 1966 where, in 2000, she founded the Revista de Literaturas Populares, which she continued to edit, and she was a member of the scientific committee on the Spanish academic journal Paremia. From 1986 to 1996, she was coordinator of the Center for Literary Studies at the Institute for Philological Research at UNAM, where she founded the magazine Literatura Mexicana. She was also an honorary president of the .

In 2000, she won the National Prize for Arts and Sciences (Language and Literature). In 2006, she won the Alfonso Reyes International Prize and, in 2009, the 23rd Menéndez Pelayo International Prize.

In 2013, Frenk sued the executrix of Charlotte Weidler's estate, Yris Rabenou Solomon, in New York County Supreme Court for paintings that had belonged to her stepfather, Paul Westheim. The paintings included a Paul Klee watercolor and Max Pechstein’s "Portrait of Paul Westheim". Westheim had entrusted the paintings to Weidler when he fled Nazi Germany, and when he wanted to recover them, Weidler had claimed, falsely, that they had been destroyed in the war. "Much of the case hinged on a 1973 release through which Frenk’s mother, Marianna, relinquished claims to all the artworks in Westheim’s collection. Margit claimed that the release was fraudulently induced because Weidler had kept secret the whereabouts of Westheim’s holdings." The case was dismissed in 2019.

Frenk died in Mexico City on 21 November 2025, at the age of 100.

Selected works Lírica Hispánica de Tipo Popular: Edad Media y Renacimiento, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (1966) Estudios Sobre Lírica Antigua. Castalia (1978) Entre Folklore y Literatura, El Colegio de México (1984) Cancionero de Romances Viejos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (1984) Charla de Pájaros o Las Aves en la Poesía Folklórica Mexicana, UNAM (1994) Lírica Española de Tipo Popular, Cátedra (2001) Poesía Popular Hispánica: 44 estudios, Fondo de Cultura Económica (2006) Estudios de Lingüística, El Colegio de México (2007) .