Mariela Griffor Biography

Mariela Griffor is a Chilean poet, publisher and diplomat. Born in the city of Concepcion in Chile, Mariela grew up in turbulent times as her country transitioned from a democracy under President Salvador Allende to a dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. As a young woman, she moved to Santiago, the capital city and enrolled in the Technical University, where she became swept up in the revolutionary climate of those times. After a brief sojourn in Brazil to continue her university studies, she returned to Santiago to join her lover and fiancé, the radical activist Julio Carlos Santibáñez Romera. When agents of the Pinochet government brutally murdered Santibáñez, she was forced to flee with their unborn child to Sweden. After struggling to adjust to her life as a refugee, she successfully learned Swedish and began a teaching career, eventually meeting her future husband, the acclaimed mathematician Edward Griffor. After a brief return to her native Chile, she and her growing family permanently resettled in Grosse Point, Michigan. After completing her university studies in the United States, she published several books of poetry and was hailed as an accomplished writer. She is now involved full-time in the arts, dividing her time between writing new poems and managing an elite publishing house that she co-founded.