El seis de mayo/May 6th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Angela Hernández Nuñez! (1954-       )

Photo from alternativasnoticias.com, in a 2016
announcement that Hernández had been awarded
the Premio Nacional de Literatura in the Dominican
Republic. Click HERE. 
A writer from the Dominican Republic who won the Premio Nacional de Literatura there in 2016, Hernández was born and raised in Jarabacoa. She graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo and was even a professor there before turning to writing full-time. As she told a group of students in March of 2016 "I could not escape my vocation as a writer. After studying Chemical engineering, I had to accept that the only work in which I felt free to create and didn't feel like I was working was this one, being a writer" (No podía evadir mi vocación de escribir, luego de estudiar ingeniería Química, tuve que aceptar que, en la única labor que podía sentirme libre de crear y no creer que estaba trabajando era esta de escritora. Read more HERE). She also told that group of students that to be a writer one must "live, read, experience, observe, and write" (vivir, leer, experimentar, observar, y escribir) and called literature "a bridge, an act of love, the thread that links and connects different people and stories" (un actor secuencial de amor, un puente, el hilo conductor que enlaza y conecta a diferentes personas e historias). Hernández has won multiple prizes in addition to the 2016 Premio Nacional, including the 1998 Premio Nacional for her book Piedra de Sacrificio, and her work has been translated into English, French, Italian, Icelandic, Bengali, and Norwegian. Hernández is also a photographer. She has been a champion of human and civil rights, especially the rights of women, since she was a child. She was the director of the Centro Nacional de Ayuda y Estudio de la Mujer and a member of the Dominican Chapter of Criticism for Latin America. She was also an active member of the Círculo de Mujeres Poetas (Circle of Women Poets) and a founding member of the Grupo de Mujeres Creadoras (Group of Creative Women). She speaks about her work in this interview, HERE, and about the challenges and rewards of being a mother and grandmother in this one. Read about her work in this short announcement about the Premio Nacional, HERE, or show students this short (20 second) clip announcing an interview with her on Acento TV (¡No se pierdan!).

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Other May 6th birthdays of note:

Nestor Basterrextea Arzadun (1924-2014): An artist (painter, sculptor, and movie director) from the Basque country in Spain, his art deals with with identity crisis of the Basque people (being both Basque and Spanish).

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