Nora Murillo

GUATEMALA

(1964– ) Nora Murillo is a poet, social worker, and professor. She was born in Livingston, Guatemala as part of the Garifuna minority, a community of people who are descendants or African, Island Caribbean, and Arawak peoples. She became a social worker to address the limited access to healthcare, education, and jobs in her community. She is a professor at the San Carlos University of Guatemala, at the University Center of Izabal. Her passion is poetry, to which she has devoted most of her life. Her writing centers on her African heritage and the struggles of women surrounded by patriarchal institutions and society. In 2000, her book Abrir la puerta (Open the Door), won the Alaide Foppo Poetry Prize. To share her love of literature, she is working on transforming the house she grew up in into a children’s community library. 

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