Hélène Elizabeth Louise Amélie Paula Dolores Poniatowska Amor (born May 19, 1932), known professionally as Elena Poniatowska is a French-born Mexican journalist and author, specializing in works on social and political issues focused on those considered to be disenfranchised especially women and the poor. She was born in Paris to upper-class parents, including her mother whose family fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. She left France for Mexico when she was ten to escape the Second World War. When she was eighteen and without a university education, she began writing for the newspaper Excélsior, doing interviews and society columns. Despite the lack of opportunity for women from the 1950s to the 1970s, she wrote about social and political issues in newspapers, books in both fiction and nonfiction form. Her best known work is La noche de Tlatelolco (The night of Tlatelolco, the English translation was entitled "Massacre in Mexico") about the repression of the 1968 student protests in Mexico City. Due to her leftwing views, she has been nicknamed "the Red Princess". She is considered to be "Mexico's grande dame of letters" and is still an active writer.

Filmography

• 2025Leonora in the Morning Light — Novel
• 2020Ana — Escritora (México)
• 2020Xico's Journey — Cuca (voice)
• 2017The Busty Doll
• 2016Between Cuba and Mexico, Everything is Bonito & Sabroso
• 2016Chaos and Order: Manuel Felguérez and His Abstract Work
• 2014Alaide Foppa Falla, The Unfortunate One
• 1997Esmeralda Comes by Night — Writer
• 1996Asaltar los cielos

Appearances as themselves (13)

• 2026Juan Gabriel: Mi Primer Bellas Artes — Herself
• 2025Memoria de Los Olvidados — Self
• Booklovers — Self
• Ven Acá... con Eugenia León y Pavel Granados — Self
• 2022Pedro — Self
• 2017Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist — Self (interviewee)
• 2017One Hundred Years with Juan Rulfo — Self
• 2013Tina Modotti: Dogma and Passion — Herself
• 2012El Santos vs la Tetona Mendoza — Self / Additional Voices (voice)
• 2012Leonora Carrington - The Surrealist Game — Self
• 2012Made in Mexico — Self
• 2011The Storm That Swept Mexico — Self - Novelist/Journalist (as Elena Poniatowska Amor)
• 2009José Emilio Pacheco: me llamo Nadie — Self