Cofer, Judith Ortiz, 1952-2016

Judith Ortiz Cofer, a longtime resident of Georgia, was one of a number of Latina writers who rose to prominence during the 1980s and 1990s.

Her stories about coming-of-age experiences in Puerto Rican communities outside of New York City and her poems and essays about cultural conflicts of immigrants to the U.S. mainland made Ortiz Cofer a leading literary interpreter of the U.S.–Puerto Rican experience. In 2010 she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame ...

Judith Ortiz Cofer (February 24, 1952 – December 30, 2016[2]) was a Puerto Rican author.[3][4] Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame,[5] and in 2013, she won the University's 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.[6]

Ortiz Cofer hailed from a family of storytellers and drew heavily from her personal experiences as a Puerto Rican American woman.[7] In her work, Ortiz Cofer brings a poetic perspective to the intersection of memory and imagination. Writing in diverse genres, she investigated women issues, Latino culture, and the American South. Ortiz Cofer's work weaves together private life and public space through intimate portrayals of family relationships and rich descriptions of place. Her own papers are currently housed at the University of Georgia's Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library ...