The Brooklyn Rail

Born in the capital, Panama City, on November 17th, 1932, Dr. Diana Morán led a life of social, sexual, and political activism that saw her arrested and exiled while still winning the country’s top prize for literature. A poet, union leader, professor, critic, and historian, Morán’s indelible if obscured legacy in Panama remains her ardent advocacy for feminism, the cultures of the isthmus, and a holistic appreciation of art in its myriad forms. In 1965, her book of poems, Gaviotas de Cruz Abierta won the the Ricardo Miró National Literary Contest of the Republic of Panama. Her students, friends and peers continued her work even after her exile by the Martínez & Torijjos Junta in 1968. Fearing for her life, she fled to Mexico City where she she finished her doctorate at El Colegio de Mexico, worked at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, and continued her polemic resistance to the military governments, imperialism, reactionary contras, and sexism. Diana Morán died at her desk, still in exile, in 1987. Her published works are Eva definida (1959), Ficción e historia: la narrativa de José Emilio Pacheco (1979 with Ivette Jiménez de Baez and Edith Negrín), Soberana presencia de la Patria (1964), En el nombre del Hijo (1966) and Reflexiones junto a tu piel (1982). Her doctoral thesis Cien Años de Soledad: novela de la desmitificación (1987) and first book, Gaviotas de Cruz Abierta (1992) were both published posthumously.