Muna Lee

Muna Lee (January 29, 1895 – April 3, 1965) was an American poet, author, and activist, who first became known and widely published as a lyric poet in the early 20th century. She also was known for her writings that promoted Pan-Americanism and feminism. She translated and published in Poetry a 1925 landmark anthology of Latin American poets, and continued to translate from poetry in Spanish.

A long-term resident of Puerto Rico from 1920 to her death 45 years later, she was an activist in the 1920s and 1930s, working on issues of women's suffrage and equal rights in Puerto Rico and Latin America. Lee worked for more than two decades in cultural affairs for the United States State Department, promoting artistic and literature exchanges between Latin America and the US, as well as other countries.

Biography Born in Raymond, Mississippi in 1895, the eldest of nine children, Lee was the daughter of Benjamin Floyd Lee, "a self-taught druggist" and son of a planter, and Mary Maud (McWilliams) Lee, whose father was a physician. Three of her siblings died in infancy. Her parents encouraged her early interest in literature and art. When Muna was seven her family moved to Hugo, Oklahoma, where her father set up his store. It was in the heart of "Indian country", at a time when many whites were moving to Oklahoma. She frequently traveled across the US in representing it, and worked against discrimination against women in employment, including restrictions on certain kinds of work. The Great Depression was causing suffering for working people.

Her work in poetry continued, as she published her own work in American literary magazines. In addition, she translated poems by Latin American writers. She produced 37 translations of poems by twenty writers for the groundbreaking book, Anthology of Contemporary Latin-American Poetry (1941), published by New Directions. which kept her involved in the arts for the rest of her life. She also continued to write poetry. Lee won the Department's Meritorious Service Award in 1952 and the Superior Service Award in 1963.

She worked with the State Department until 1965, retiring two months before her death from lung cancer on April 3, 1965, in San Juan. The Sentry-Box Murder’’ (US, 1935); and as “Murder in the Sentry-Box (UK, 1935) Murder at 28:10 (1936) Death in the Glass (1937) Sinister Crag (1938)

Poetry Sea-Change (1923) Among 16 translators of works in Anthology of Contemporary Latin-American Poetry (1941) Secret Country translated from the Spanish of Jorge Carrera Andrade (1946)