author
Gertrude Diamant
1901–1969
An American writer who turned close observation into vivid storytelling, she is best remembered for The Days of Ofelia, a warmly praised portrait of everyday life in Mexico. Her work blends a reporter’s eye for detail with the curiosity of a novelist.
1 Audiobook
Labyrinth : A novel
by Gertrude Diamant
About the author
Born in 1901, she was an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and book reviewer. She graduated from Barnard College in 1924 and later taught English at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn.
She became best known for The Days of Ofelia (1942), a book drawn from her time in Mexico City while she was carrying out intelligence-test research among the Otomi. The book was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club and stood out for its lively, humane picture of ordinary people rather than tourist postcard scenes.
She died on January 4, 1969, at age 67, in Port Chester, New York. Although she is not widely read today, her work still attracts interest for its clear-eyed, personal way of writing about cultural encounter and city life.