Alma Flor Ada

Alma Flor Ada is an award-winning Cuban-American author of children's books, poetry, and novels. A Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco, she is recognized for her work promoting bilingual and multicultural education in the United States.

Born in 1938 in Camagüey, Cuba, she grew up in a family of storytellers, poets, and educators, hearing traditional tales retold by her grandmother, father, and uncle. At the age of fifteen, she traded a quinceañera party for summer school in the United States, thus beginning her life as a bilingual person. After completing high school in Cuba, she earned a scholarship to attend Loretto Heights College. After a year at Barry College in Miami, she earned a Diploma de Estudios Hispanos with an Excellency Award at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She completed her Ph.D at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholars Exchange Grant and appointed a Radcliffe Institute scholar at Harvard University and prepared her dissertation for publication, Pedro Salinas: El diálogo creador.

In 1970, she and her four children relocated permanently to the United States. She currently resides in Marin County, California, and has nine grandchildren.

(source: Wikipedia)