Margarita Engle author page

Margarita Engle biography

Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet and author of books for children and young adults, particularly novels, memoirs, and biographies written in verse. Trained as a botanist, she earned a BS from California State Polytechnic University and an MS from Iowa State University before developing her literary career.

Engle’s books frequently draw on Cuban and Latin American history, culture, nature, and the lives of historical figures. Her verse novel The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom, published by Henry Holt, received a 2009 Newbery Honor and won the Pura Belpré Author Award. The book follows several voices during Cuba’s nineteenth-century wars for independence, centering on the historical healer Rosa La Bayamesa.

Her other verse novels include The Poet Slave of Cuba, The Firefly Letters, Hurricane Dancers, The Lightning Dreamer, With a Star in My Hand, Your Heart, My Sky, Rima’s Rebellion, and Wild Dreamers. Her verse memoir Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings won the 2016 Pura Belpré Author Award and was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. She has also written picture books including Drum Dream Girl, illustrated by Rafael López, Dancing Hands, illustrated by Rafael López, and The Flying Girl.

From 2017 to 2019, Engle served as the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate. Her 2024 young adult novel in verse Wild Dreamers, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, received a 2025 Pura Belpré Young Adult Author Honor. Atheneum also published her verse novel Evamar on July 28, 2026.