Amigas

'This collection is a testimony of hope and endurance through the power of writing. The experience that unites us and that we want to share with you is the experience of exile, of belonging neither in Chile nor the United States: our experience of existing between two cultures and not feeling comfortable in either of them, of choosing the path of political activism and uniting our destiny with that of the voices of marginalised women' - Marjorie Agosin. 'I am convinced that [these letters] should be made public as a testimony of the life of women in Latin America, and of the Latina immigrants who live in the United States. The histories interwoven in our correspondence are not exceptions, they are the norm. These episodes from the lives of Marjorie and Emma are part of a voluminous tome of common histories that have been lived and continue to be lived by Latin American women, from our grandmothers to our daughters' - Emma Sepulveda.This collection of letters chronicles a remarkable, long-term friendship between two women who, despite differences of religion and ethnicity, have followed remarkably parallel paths from their first adolescent meeting in their native Chile to their current lives in exile as writers, academics, and political activists in the United States. Spanning more than thirty years (1966-2000), Agosin's and Sepulveda's letters speak eloquently on themes that are at once personal and political - family life and patriarchy, women's roles, the loneliness of being a religious or cultural outsider, political turmoil in Chile, and the experience of exile. Marjorie Agosin is a poet and Professor of Spanish at Wellesley College. Emma Sepulveda is Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Nevada, Reno.