Margarita Engle
| Margarita Engle | |
|---|---|
Engle in 2014
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| Born |
September 2, 1951 Pasadena, California, United States |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Website | |
| margaritaengle |
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Margarita Engle (born in Pasadena, California on September 2, 1951) is a Cuban American poet and author of many award-winning books for children, young adults and adults. Most of Engle's stories are written in verse and are a reflection of her Cuban heritage and her deep appreciation and knowledge of nature. She became the first Latino awarded a Newbery Honor in 2009 for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom.
Engle's father was born in Los Angeles, California and her mother in Trinidad, Cuba. Although Engle was born and raised in California, growing up, she spent many summers with her extended family in Cuba. As a child, she was introduced to poetry in Spanish, particularly the works of Jose Martí.
Engle earned a B.S. from California State Polytechnic University in 1974, an M.S. from Iowa State University in 1977, and a doctoral degree in biology from the University of California, Riverside in 1983. Before starting her writing career, Engle was a tenured professor of agronomy at California Polytechnic University. While completing her doctoral degree, she took a seminar in creative writing with Tomás Rivera, and credits this experience with igniting her passion to write. She lives in Central California, where she enjoys helping her husband with his volunteer work for wilderness search and rescue dog training programs.
THE POET SLAVE OF CUBA, A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano (Henry Holt & Co., 2006)
THE SURRENDER TREE, Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom (Henry Holt & Co., 2008)
TROPICAL SECRETS, Holocaust Refugees in Cuba (Henry Holt & Co., 2009)
THE FIREFLY LETTERS, A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba (Henry Holt & Co., 2010)
SUMMER BIRDS, The Butterflies of Maria Merian (Henry Holt & Co., 2010, picture book)
HURRICANE DANCERS, The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck (Henry Holt & Co., 2011)
DRUM DREAM GIRL, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt., 2015)
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