Doris Dana (1920 – November 28, 2006) was an American translator known for having been an associate of

Gabriela Mistral Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (; 7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957), known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral (), was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Lite ...

, the Chilean Nobel Prize winner. Dana inherited Mistral's estate following Mistral's death in January 1957.

Biography

Dana was born into a wealthy family of New York society in 1920. They lost almost all of their money and property in the wake of the

Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

. Because part of those funds had already been set aside in trust funds for the education of Dana and her two sisters, they received a thorough education at the

Lenox School The Birch Wathen Lenox School is a college preparatory K-12 school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Birch Wathen Lenox comprises approximately 500 students from all around New York City. The Birch Wathen Lenox School is one ...

. Her younger sister,

Leora Dana Leora Dana (April 1, 1923 – December 13, 1983) was an American film, stage and television actress. Education Dana was born in New York City and her elder sister was Doris Dana. Dana graduated from Barnard College and the Royal Academy of Dram ...

, went on to become a stage and screen star; her older sister, Ethel Dana, became a medical doctor in California. Doris Dana received a Bachelor's degree in Classics (Latin) from

Barnard College, Columbia University Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbi ...

. She briefly taught night school in New York City, before writing script "treatments" in New York City during the 1950s. After until Mistral's death in 1957 she never worked full-time again. Dana was a personal friend of Gabriela Mistral with whom she lived from 1953 until Mistral's death in 1957. Although they first met in New York in 1946, Mistral did not remember that meeting. Dana began a correspondence with her in February 1948 that led to an invitation to visit the poet at her then-residence in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

. The two women intermittently traveled together in Mexico and Italy from the end of 1948 to the end of 1952, at which point Dana purchased a house in

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

, where she supervised Mistral's end-of-life care. After the poet's death in January 1957, Doris Dana translated and edited one bilingual edition of the ''Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral'' from Spanish to English.

Works

Apart from the organization of Mistral's papers and the administration of the writer's estate, all three of Doris Dana's works are books drawn from the Mistral legacy, which she controlled for fifty years: * ''Crickets and Frogs'', a short fable for children. * ''The Elephant and His Secret/El Elefante Y Su Secreto,'' another short fable for children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dana, Doris 1920 births 2006 deaths American feminist writers Spanish–English translators English translators Writers from New York City 20th-century American women writers 20th-century British translators Translators of Gabriela Mistral 21st-century American women