FILBA International Committee
J. M. Coetzee
Coetzee has been a professor of literature in numerous prestigious universities, a translator, a linguist, and a literary critic. In 2003 the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1974 he published his first novel, Dusklands. He wrote In the Heart of the Country (1977), which won the Central News Agency (CNA) Award, the first literary prize for South African works; Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), which was also awarded the CNA; The Life & Times of Michael K. (1983), which earned him his first Booker Prize, the most prestigious award for literature in the English language, and the Prix Femina Étranger; Foe (1986); The Age of Iron (1990); The Master of Petersburg (1994); Disgrace (1999), which earned him his second Booker Prize; Infancy (1998), Youth (2002), Elizabeth Costello (2003), Slow Man (2005), Diary of a Bad Year (2007) and Summertime (2009). He has also published various essay collections, among them Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996), The Lives of Animals (1999), Stranger Shores (2002), and Internal Mechanisms (2007). He has also been awarded the Jerusalem Prize and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. In Spain, he received the Premi Llibreter in 2003 and the Kingdom of Redonda Award, created by writer Javier Marías.
Teresa Cremisi
I was born in Alexandria, Egypt into a cosmopolitan family. We formed part of an elite “European” that did not stand out for its money, but for its culture. This small society, which spanned numerous generations in the country, was described magnificently by Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet. Later I spent a large part of my life in Milan, Italy, where I studied and very quickly entered into the world of editing. I consider editing to be an irresistible vocation that has transformed my life.
When I accepted the offer of Antoine Gallimard to make me his editorial director in Paris, I knew that I was entering unknown territory, but at the same time I was reconnecting with my memories of childhood and my maternal language. After sixteen years in Gallimard, I accepted the position of president and general director of a prominent editorial group, Flammarion, and I continued there for 10 years. My first book, The Triumphant, coincides with the decision to dedicate myself to other passions. I have every intention of continuing to regularly write and publish chronicles in the Repubblica diary and in a French magazine.
Cecilia García Huidobro
Cecilia García Huidobro is a journalist with a master’s degree in Literature from the Catholic University of Chile. She is the Executive Director of the Official Chair in Honor of Roberto Bolaño and Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Writing for the University Diego Portales. She directed the University Journal of UC and was editor of the Mercurio Book Review.
Among other works, Huidobro has published Portaretrato: Entrevistas a destacados intelectuales latinoamericanos (1993), Tics de los chilenos (1998, re-edited with new chapters in 2008), Joaquín Edwards Bello a un transatlántico varado en el Mapocho (2004), Moneda Dura, Gabriela Mistral por ella misma (2005); Desde la vereda de la historia. Crónicas de Morla Lynch (2013). She published Una historia de Revistas (2012) in collaboration with Paula Escobar. She has also compiled the journalistic works of José Donoso: Diarios Tempranos: Donoso in Progress, 1950-1965. In 2000 she received the Chilean Book Chamber Award “for her prominent work in the world of books and literature.”
Valerie Miles
Raised in the United States though she lives and works in Barcelona, Spain, Valerie Miles is a writer, editor, translator, and professor. She founded Granta Magazine's Spanish language project in 2003, while directing Emecé in Spain. She continues to lead the magazine alongside Aurelio Major, and together they published the groundbreaking "Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists" issue in both languages, in 2010. Now in partnership with Galaxia Gutenberg, the Spanish journal has just launched its 22nd issue. She also founded the Spanish language books collection of the New York Review of Books during her time as associate director of Alfaguara in Madrid. She contributes literary criticism and articles to The New York Times and other publications including El País, el Cultural, Altaïr and La Nación, as well as La Vanguardia in Barcelona. She writes essay and narrative for literary journals like The Paris Review, Granta, and Brick. She has translated the work of Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Fernando Aramburu, Rafael Chirbes, Milena Busquets, Enrique Vila Matas, Marina Perezagua among others, and teaches in the Postgraduate program for Literary Translation and also Creative Writing at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. As a specialist on Roberto Bolaño, she curated the first exhibition of his private papers in the Archivo Bolaño 1977 - 2003 show that was inaugurated in the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) in 2013, which traveled to the Centro Recoleta in Buenos Aires and Casa del Lector in Madrid. In 2013, she was voted one of the most influential professionals in publishing by the Buenos Aires book fair. Her first book, A Thousand Forests in One Acorn, was published in Spanish original in 2010, and in English translation by Open Letter in 2014. She's currently at work on a new book.
Edmundo Paz Soldán (Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1967).
Edmundo Paz Soldán is a writer and professor of Latin American literature at Cornell University. He is the author of eleven novels, among them Río Fugitivo (1998), Los vivos y los muertos (2009), Norte (2011), Iris (2014), and Los días de la peste (2017); as well as various short story collections: Las máscaras de la nada (1990), Desapariciones (1994), Amores imperfectos (1988), Las visiones (2016). His works have been translated into eleven languages and have received awards such as the Juan Rulfo Award (1997) and the National Book Award in Bolivia (2002).
Sylvia Molloy
I am an Argentine novelist and critic. I am the author of En breve carcél (novel; 1981), El común olvido (novel; 2002), Varia imaginación (short stories; 2003), Desarticulaciones (short stories; 2010) and Vivir entre lenguas, the majority with versions in English and Portuguese. My books of literary criticism include La diffusion de la littérature hispanoaméricaine en France (essay; 1973); Las letras de Borges (essay; 1979 y 1999), Acto de presencia: La literatura autobiográfica en América Latina (essay;1991-1995), Poses de fin de siglo: Desbordes del género en la modernidad (essay; 2012), Women’s Writing in Latin America (1991; in collaboration with Beatriz Sarlo and Sara Castro Klaren), Hispanisms and Homosexualities (1998; in collaboration with Robert Irwin). I currently live in the United States where I have worked for many years as a professor of Latin American and Comparative Literature at Princeton, Yale, and New York University. It was there that I also founded the MFA of Creative Writing in Spanish.
Marta Sanz
My name is Marta Sanz and I was born in Madrid in 1967. I studied and earned my doctorate in Spanish Philology because I always wanted to write, and it seemed to me that this was the subject that most closely matched my interests. To be able to write, I have given clases and have collaborated with different periodicals and reviews. I have also been a ghost writer, and served as an editorial reviewer. I am an alumna of the School of Letters in Madrid where I learned the difference between writing and being a writer, and where I met my first editor, Constantino Bértolo; with him, I published El frío, Lenguas muertas and Los mejores tiempos. Since then I have published thirty novels, one essay, four poem collections, and a multitude of short stories included in different anthologies. I have received some awards such as the Ojo Crítico Award, the Vargas Llosa NH Award, the Tigre Juan Award, the Cálamo Award, and most recently the Herralde Award for my novel Farándula. Publishing works in the editorial Anagrama and meeting Jorge Herralde has helped me make great strides in my profession as a writer. I write because I cannot help it. I write autobiographical novels (La lección de anatomía), mysteries (Black, black, black…), social critiques (Animales domésticos), experimental and feminist books (Daniela Astor y la caja negra), social and satirical texts (Susana y los viejos). At times I find it difficult to separate certain writings, and I often experience the sensation that I only write autobiographies: my works of fiction are like masks that undress me, allowing me to express a vulnerability that almost all of us have experienced. I am interested in political writing in every form. I trust that the urge to write will continue to carry significance in our world: when I am unsure, I search for reasons in every text I write to convince myself that this is true.
Gabriela Stöckli
Gabriela Stöckli has a PhD in Literature and is the author of a monograph about the Argentine author Héctor Tizón. She has translated children’s literature and Spanish art books to German, and is a member of various juries for translation. Since its inauguration in 2005, she has directed the Translation House Looren in Switzerland, an institution that supports literary translators across the world and of all language combinations with grants, residencies, and opportunities for continued professional training. She is also dedicated to organizing public events to highlight literary translators and their profession. With the Translation House Looren, she has inaugurated the program “Looren America Latina” (www.looren.net). Gabriela Stockli lives in Zurich.
Irvine Welsh
I was born in Edinburgh in 1958 and I am a writer. I lived in Muirhouse, and when I was 16 I dropped out of school and took up a thousand jobs. Soon after I moved to London, following the Punk movement. At the end of the eighties, I returned to Scotland where I worked for the Edinburgh District Council. I graduated from university and I dedicated myself to writing. My most well-known novel is Trainspotting, which was made into a film twenty years ago. Some of my other novels include Filth, Porn, Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, Crime, Skagboys and The Sex Life of Siamese Twins. I have also written some short story collections, guides, and plays.
Yolanda Reyes
Yolanda Reyes is an educator and writer. She directs “Espantapájaros,” a program that fosters reading skills at early ages, and works as a consultant for culture and education projects. Her books include El terror de sexto B, Los años terribles, Los agujeros negros, Qué raro que me llame Federico and La casa imaginaria.