Mariela Griffor

After her fiance was brutally murdered in 1985, Mariela left Chile and went to Sweden.

She met mathematician Edward Griffor in Sweden and later married him. He husband is one of the world's leading Artificial Intelligence researchers.

Having directly witnessed the brutality of the Pinochet regime in her native Chile, she is a global spokesperson for her homeland and a recognized representative of the fine arts

Mariela was born on September 29, 1961 at Concepcion, Chile. She has one sister and spent much of her childhood on her grandfather's enormous ranch.

In high school, she studied French and English and at 19, got enrolled in the Santiago Technical University, majoring in Spanish literature and Journalism.

Almost immediately after enrolling at the Technical University of Santiago, she became involved with radical student protest organizations.

In 1983, the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) was formed as the armed wing of the Communist Party with her boyfriend Julio Carlos Santibáñez as its leader.

In 1984, she spent seven months in Brazil studying journalism at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

In 1985, she returned to Santiago to be with Santibáñez and they become engaged to marry after Mariela became pregnant with Santibáñez's child.

In September 1985, Santibáñez was brutally murdered on orders of Pinochet.

Mariela is globally recognized for the moving and evocative passages in her poems, published in five separate volumes.