Elena Poniatowska

Hélène Elizabeth Louise Amélie Paula Dolores Poniatowska Amor, known professionally as Elena Poniatowska, is a French-born Mexican journalist and author, specializing in works on social and political issues focused on those considered to be disenfranchised especially women and the poor. She was born in Paris to upper-class parents, including her mother whose family fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. She left France for Mexico when she was ten to escape the Second World War. When she was eighteen and without a university education, she began writing for the newspaper Excélsior, doing interviews and society columns. Despite the lack of opportunity for women from the 1950s to the 1970s, she wrote about social and political issues in newspapers, books in both fiction and nonfiction form. Her best known work is La noche de Tlatelolco about the repression of the 1968 student protests in Mexico City. Due to her left wing views, she has been nicknamed "the Red Princess". She is considered to be "Mexico's grande dame of letters" and is still an active writer.

19 May 1932

Born on the same birth date (19 May 1932): Alma Cogan • Bill Fitch • Paul Erdman

Born on the same birth day (19 May): Alan Melville • Dick Scobee • Ed Cota • Emma Shapplin • Evgeny Kuznetsov • Jonas Renkse • Lena Einhorn • Lorraine Hansberry • Malcolm X • Paul Brady • Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour

Born in the same month (May 1932): Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath • Derek Taylor • Geraldine McEwan • Harlon Hill • Ivor Richard • Jay Miner • Kevork Ajemian • Paul Erdman • Pauline Oliveros • Pete Domenici • Peter Burge (cricketer) • Phyllida Law • Ray Cooney • Robert Osborne • Rodric Braithwaite • Sandy Woodward • Stan Goldberg • Valentino (fashion designer)