Nationality Puerto Rican Period 10 | Name Judith Cofer Role Author | |
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Genre Poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, young adult novels Notable works A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood Awards Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Pura Belpre Award for Writing Books The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry, Silent dancing, An Island Like You: Stories of, Call Me Maria, The line of the sun | ||
The life of judith ortiz cofer
Judith Ortiz Cofer (February 24, 1952 – December 30, 2016) was a Puerto Rican American author. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2013, she won the University's 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.
Contents
- The life of judith ortiz cofer
- american history by judith ortiz cofer
- Early years
- Academic and literary career
- Awards and honors
- Literary work
- Multi genre works
- Poetry
- Prose
- Works on writing
- Young adult literature
- Childrens books
- Pamphlets
- Contributions
- References
Ortiz Cofer hailed from a family of story tellers and drew heavily from her personal experiences as a Puerto Rican American woman. In her work, Ortiz Cofer brings a poetic perspective to the intersection of memory and imagination. Writing in diverse genres, she investigated women issues, Latino culture, and the American South. Ortiz Cofer's work weaves together private life and public space through intimate portrayals of family relationships and rich descriptions of place. Her manuscripts and papers are currently housed at the University of Georgia's Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
american history by judith ortiz cofer
Early years
Judith Ortiz Cofer was born in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, on February 24, 1952. She moved to Paterson, New Jersey with her family in 1956. They often made back-and-forth trips between Paterson and Hormigueros. In 1967, her family moved to Augusta, Georgia, where she attended Butler High School. Judith and her brother initially resisted the family's move South. Upon arriving in Georgia, however, Ortiz Cofer was struck by Augusta's vibrant colors and vegetation compared with the gray concrete and skies of city-life in Paterson.
Academic and literary career
Ortiz Cofer received a B.A. in English from Augusta College, and later an M.A. in English literature from Florida Atlantic University. Early in her writing career, Ortiz Cofer won fellowships from Oxford University and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, which enabled her to begin developing her multi-genre body of work. In 1984, Ortiz Cofer joined the faculty of the University of Georgia as the Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing. After 26 years of teaching undergraduate and graduate students, Ortiz Cofer retired from the University of Georgia in December 2013.
Awards and honors
Literary work
Ortiz Cofer's work can largely be classified as creative nonfiction. Her narrative self is strongly influenced by oral storytelling, which was inspired by her grandmother, an able storyteller in the tradition of teaching through storytelling among Puerto Rican women. Ortiz Cofer's autobiographical work often focuses on her attempts at negotiating her life between two cultures, American and Puerto Rican, and how this process informs her sensibilities as a writer. Her work also explores such subjects as racism and sexism in American culture, machismo and female empowerment in Puerto Rican culture, and the challenges diasporic immigrants face in a new culture. Among Ortiz Cofer's more well known essays are "The Story of My Body" and "The Myth of the Latin Woman," both reprinted in The Latin Deli.
A central theme Ortiz Cofer returns to again and again in her writing is language and the power of words to create and shape identities and worlds. Growing up, Ortiz Cofer's home language was Spanish. In school, she encountered English, which became her functional language and the language she wrote in. Early in her life, Ortiz Cofer realized her "main weapon in life was communication," and to survive, she would have to become fluent in the language spoken where she lived.