Tamara Kamenszain was born in Buenos Aires in 1947. Having abandoned her degree in philosophy, she began work as a journalist. She edited the independent magazine, 2001 before becoming editor of the cultural pages of the newspapers La Opinionand Clarin.
In 1972 Kamenszain received the poetry prize of the National Arts Fund of Argentina for From this Side of the Mediterranean, her first book of poems,published in Buenos Aires in 1973.
Following a year in New York after the appearance of her next collection, No, Kamenszain began teaching at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Mexico. In addition to her teaching, she also worked for the National Endowment for the Arts in Mexico and the Ministry of Culture in Argentina. She left Argentina to live in Mexico until 1984.
A prolific author, among her many works are El texto silencioso (The Quiet),Tradición y vanguardia en la poesía sudamericana (Tradition and modernity in the poetry of South America), La casa grande , Vida de living, La edad de la poesía, Tango bar, El Ghetto and Solos y solas (Alone and Lonely).
Kamenszain has been awarded a number of prizes, such as the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal, among others.
