Her mother was Mariana Frenk-Westheima writer of Spanish-Mexican prose, hispanist, lecturer of literature, museum expert and a Mexican translator.
[1] After obtaining her MA, she returned home to study at the College of Mexico, where she was a professor and researcher from 1950 to 1980, except for a brief stay in Paris to attend classes by Marcel Bataillon.
She was a collaborator on the Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica (NRFH), which was managed by Raimundo Lida and, later, by Antonio Alatorre, whom she married.
She has been a professor at UNAM since 1966 where, in 2000, she founded the Revista de Literaturas Populares, which she still edits, and She is a member of the scientific committee on the Spanish academic journal Paremia.
In 2013, Frenk sued the executrix of Charlotte Weidler's estate, Yris Rabenou Solomon, in New York County Supreme Court for paintings that had belonged to her stepfather, Paul Westheim.