Elena Poniatowska

Writer, Actor

May 19, 1932 (94 years)
Hélène Elizabeth Louise Amélie Paula Dolores Poniatowska Amor (born May 19, 1932), known professionally as Elena Poniatowska is a French-born Mexican journalist and author, specializing in works on social and political issues focused on those considered to be disenfranchised especially women and the poor. She was born in Paris to upper-class parents, including her mother whose family fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. She left France for Mexico when she was ten to escape the Second World War. When she was eighteen and without a university education, she began writing for the newspaper Excélsior, doing interviews and society columns. Despite the lack of opportunity for women from the 1950s to the 1970s, she wrote about social and political issues in newspapers, books in both fiction and nonfiction form. Her best known work is La noche de Tlatelolco (The night of Tlatelolco, the English translation was entitled "Massacre in Mexico") about the repression of the 1968 student protests in Mexico City. Due to her leftwing views, she has been nicknamed "the Red Princess". She is considered to be "Mexico's grande dame of letters" and is still an active writer.

Known For

  • Leonora in the Morning Light
    Leonora in the Morning Light2025
  • Esmeralda Comes by Night
    Esmeralda Comes by Night1997
  • Xico's Journey
    Xico's Journey2020
  • Storm the Skies
    Storm the Skies2000
  • Chaos and Order: Manuel Felguérez and His Abstract Work
    Chaos and Order: Manuel Felguérez and His Abstract Work2016

Filmography

2025
2023
2023
2022
2022
Pedro · as Self
2017
2017
2012
The Wild Adventures of El Santos · as Self / Additional Voices (voice)
2012
Made In Mexico · as Self
2011
The Storm That Swept Mexico · as Self - Novelist/journalist (as Elena Poniatowska Amor)
2010
2005
2003
2001
Democracy Now! · as Self
2000
1994