Mohr, Nicholasa (1938–)

The award-winning author, playwright, and accomplished visual artist Nicholasa Mohr has written thirteen books, primarily for children and young adults. She was born in New York City's El Barrio to parents who had immigrated to the United States from Puerto Rico. Her father died when she was only eight years old, leaving her mother with seven children to care for on her own.

Mohr was the youngest child in the family, and by the time she went to kindergarten her eldest brother had already taught her to read and write. Mohr also loved drawing pictures, and she used her artistic talents and fantastic imagination to escape the poverty of her surrounding community. As a result, Mohr earned a great deal of praise in school, which gave her the confidence that would eventually lead to her success, initially as a visual artist, and later as a writer.

Mohr wrote her first book, Nilda (1974), after her art agent urged her to write a book about her experiences growing up in El Barrio. Nilda received a great deal of critical acclaim, having been described by scholars as an important new contribution to the long tradition of bildungsroman literature. In 1999 and 2000 stories adapted from Mohr's El Bronx Remembered (1975) ran on New York City stages. A musical adaptation of Nilda was sponsored in 1999 through a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Mohr resides in El Barrio of New York City, where she continues to write and serve as a witness to the diversity of the American experience.

See alsoFeminism and Feminist Organizations; Hispanics in the United States; Literature: Spanish America; Puerto Rico; Women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Works

Nilda. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

El Bronx Remembered: A Novella and Stories. New York: HarperCollins, 1975.

In Nueva York. New York: Dial, 1977.

Felita. New York: Dial, 1979.

Rituals of Survival: A Woman's Portfolio. Houston, TX: Arte Publico, 1985.

Going Home. New York: Dial, 1986.

All For the Better: A Story of El Barrio. Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughan, 1992.

Growing Up Inside the Sanctuary of My Imagination. New York: J. Messner, 1994.

The Magic Shell. New York: Scholastic, 1995.

The Song of El Coquí and Other Tales of Puerto Rico. With Antonio Martorell. New York: Viking, 1995.

Old Letivia and the Mountain of Sorrows. New York: Viking, 1996.

A Matter of Pride and Other Stories. Houston, TX: Arte Publico, 1997.

Secondary Works

Bellver Sáez, Pilar. "Nilda de Nicholasa Mohr: El Bildungsroman y la aparición de un espacio puertorriqueño en la literatura de los EEUU." Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Espanola de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos 28, no. 1 (June 2006): 101-113.

Muñiz, Ismael. "Bildungsroman Written by Puerto Rican Women in the United States: Nicholasa Mohr's Nilda: A Novel and Esmeralda Santiago's When I Was a Puerto Rican." Atenea 19, no. 1-2 (June 1999): 79-101.

Zarnowski, Myra. "An Interview with Author Nicholasa Mohr." Reading Teacher (October 1991): 100.

                                Ethriam Cash Brammer