(poet; born in Asunción, 1954) is considered one of the three most important women writers in Paraguay, and ranks in her nation's top ten among all authors. A freelance journalist for cultural affairs and a professor at the University of the North, Dr. Espinola is a leading force in the study of U. S. literature in Paraguay's institutes of higher education. She has published six books of poetry, one of them a bilingual edition in the United States, as well as numerous scholarly papers on such topics as the intertextual approach to Paraguayan women's literature. Her latest collection is La Estrategia del Caracol, which has been praised as "a sincere manifestation of the affectionate impulse, of sensual fire, decanted with precise intensity." The daughter of a renowned Paraguayan writer, she followed her father's advice to learn an economically secure trade and has a private dental practice. She is participating in the program as a grantee of the US Information Agency.