Agi (Agnes) Fried (later Mishol) was born in Cehu Silvaniei, Transylvania, Romania, to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust.
During her military service at the nuclear facility in Dimona, she began studying literature at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
In 2018 Mishol's personal literary archive, including manuscripts, drafts, photographs, letters and diaries was moved to the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.
Mishol's poems are widely popular in Israel, have been set to music by various Israeli artists including Corinne Allal, Yehudit Ravitz and Ori Leshman, and adapted into theatrical works such as "Yanshufot" (Owls, 2004).
Translated selections of her poems have been published in the US, Germany, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Argentina, Romania and Slovenia.
According to Haim Gouri, Agi Mishol has a broad poetic spectrum: "All flora and fauna near and far, varied and colorful landscapes, love and romance, powerful eroticism, revealing and concealing, being the only child of Holocaust survivors who personally experienced the worse...It is poetry filled with rich metaphors and ongoing observation of the human condition.
"[1] In his introduction to "Selected and New Poems", Prof. Dan Miron wrote: "Agi Mishol is a poet now standing at the height of her strength... Agi Mishol undoubtedly belongs to the great dynasty of female Hebrew poets – Rachel Bluwstein, Yocheved Bat-Miriam, Lea Goldberg, Dalia Rabikovitch and Yona Wallach.
In his book review in The New York Times of Look There (2006), Joel Brouwer wrote: "Mishol... takes up political subjects with a sly delicacy reminiscent of the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska's best work".