María Irene Fornés

María Irene Fornés (born May 14, 1930) is a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director who is associated with the establishment of the Off-Off-Broadway movement in the 1960s. Fornes themes focused on poverty and feminism. In 1965, she won her first Obie Award for Promenade and her second for The Successful Life of Three. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize with her play And What of the Night? Other notable works include Fefu and Her Friends, Mud, Letters from Cuba and Sarita. Fornés was born in Havana, Cuba, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 after her father, Carlos Fornés, died in 1945. She became a U.S. citizen in 1951. When she first arrived in America, Fornés did not speak any English and worked...