Braided Memories

In this evocative and emotional work, the poet, novelist, and human rights activist Marjorie Agosín pays homage to her great-grandmother, Helena Broder. As a young woman, Helena escaped Vienna to seek refuge in Chile, leaving shortly after the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 when the Nazi regime unleashed a campaign of violence, terror, and destruction against the Jewish population. 


This book takes readers on Marjorie’s journey through time and space, and across thresholds between life, death, and dreams, to discover Helena’s lost voice. This is not a linear journey, but one that braids together the past, the present, and the future, allowing Marjorie to give Helena, an exiled woman, a third home in the liminal space of memory and literature; a safe haven where she can be complete rather than fragmented, a place where her “exhausted suitcase” can finally rest.


This touching collection of poems, in Marjorie Agosín’s native Spanish together with Alison Ridley’s delicate English translation, is enhanced by evocative images from the Chilean photographer Samuel Shats, as well as poignant memorabilia of Helena herself.