The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Aurora Levins Morales was born in 1954 in barrio Castañer, Lares, Puerto Rico. She holds an Associate Degree in Arts from Franconia College and a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies and Puerto Rican History from Union Institute & University. She’s the author of the books Getting Home Alive, coauthored with Rosario Morales (Firebrand Books, 1986); Medicine Stories: History, Culture and the Politics of Integrity (South End Press, 1998), with a second edition published as Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals (Duke University Press Books, 2019); Remedios: Stories of earth and iron from the history of Puertorriqueñas (Beacon Press, 1998), with a second edition forthcoming; Kindling: Writings on the Body (Palabrera Press, 2013); Cosecha and Other Stories, co-authored with Rosario Morales (Palabrera Press, 2014); and Silt: Prose Poems (Palabrera Press, 2019). She was also a contributor to the anthology This Bridge Called my Back (Persephone Press, 1981). She understands herself as being a “part of social movements from which literature emerged, US and Latin American feminism, US BIPOC movements, especially women’s organizing, Latin American Nueva Canción/Cuban Nueva Trova as part of anti-imperialist movements, the Disability Justice movement, [and] the Jewish queer/feminist left.” She currently lives in Indiera Alta, Maricao, Puerto Rico, where she farms and runs a one-on-one writing mentorship program which, while accepting writers of many identities, prioritizes “diasporicans wanting to explore roots/connect with land and culture, and then women/genderqueer POC” in a reciprocal support system, with apprentices helping with driving, and farm and house tasks.  

 Fuentes consultadas

 Levins Morales, Aurora. Author Questionnaire. The Puerto Rican Literature Project, 2024.

 Levins Morales, Aurora. Interview. Conducted by Ricardo Alberto Maldonado and Ana Portnoy Brimmer, 30 May 2022.