Elsa Cross was born in Mexico City in 1946. Her work has recently (2013) been collected in a new complete edition (Poesía completa) from the Fondo de Cultura Económica in Mexico City. Her book El diván de Antar (1990) was awarded the Premio Nacional de Poesía Aguascalientes (1989), and Moira (1993) won the Premio Internacional de Poesía Jaime Sabines (1992), both in Mexico. In 2008 Elsa Cross was awarded the most prestigious poetry prize in Mexico, the Xavier Villurrutia Prize, an award that she shared with Pura López-Colomé. Her poems have been translated into twelve languages and published in magazines and more than sixty anthologies in different countries. She has also published essays. She has an MA and PhD in Philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where she holds a professorship and teaches Philosophy of Religion and Comparative Mythology.