To Love A Woman / Amar a una mujer
Join Argentinian poet Diana Bellessi and translator Leo Boix to celebrate the publication of To
Love A Woman. Bellessi is a groundbreaking writer who has been credited as the godmother of
LGBTQI+ poetry in Latin America. Over the decades she has championed feminist and queer
issues and themes, and has exerted a strong influence on prominent poets and writers from the
1980’s through to the present day.
Bellessi’s direct, simple aesthetic style was adopted, in part, to speak directly to ordinary people
of Argentina over the literary intelligentsia, part of her deep commitment to highlighting the
social condition of the working class in Latin America, alongside progressive politics and
ecological conservation.
A prolific writer, Bellessi has published 25 books and this selection draws from the whole range,
charting the progression and evolution of her poetry. Largely untranslated until now, The Poetry
Translation Centre is proud to be publishing this collection, many of the poems appearing in
English for the first time.
Bellessi and Boix will be reading from To Love A Woman in the original Spanish with English
translations, and discussing her life and work.
Diana Bellessi
Diana Bellessi is a poet from the province of Santa Fé in Argentina. Born in 1946, she has
become one of the foremost voices in Latin America, her many awards include: 1993
Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry, 2004 Premio Konex Merit Award, and the 2007 Fondo
Nacional de las Artes, lifetime award in poetry. She is considered to be the godmother of
feminist / LGBTQI+ / Lesbian poetry in Argentina and her work demonstrates a deep
commitment to progressive politicals, ecological conservation and the social condition of the
working class in Argentina and Latin America. Her poetry is seen as groundbreaking for its
depiction of Lesbian desire and has exerted a strong influence on prominent poets and writers
from the 80s and 90s through to the present day.
Leo Boix
Leo Boix is a bilingual Latino British poet, translator and journalist. He has published two
collections in Spanish, Un lugarpropio and Mar de noche. Boix is a fellow of The Complete
Works and co-director of ‘Invisible Presence’. His English poems have appeared widely and his
debut collection of English poetry, Ballad of a Happy Immigrant, was published by Chatto and
Windus in 2021.