Lina Meruane


Lina Meruane Boza is a Chilean writer and professor. Her work, written in Spanish, has been translated into English, Italian, Portuguese, German, and French. In 2011 she won the Anna Seghers-Preis for the quality of her work, and in 2012 the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize for her novel Sangre en el ojo.

Biography

Born in Santiago, Chile, Lina Meruane is of Palestinian and Italian descent. She is the niece of actress Nelly Meruane and comedian. She started writing as a storyteller and cultural journalist. In 1997 she received a writing grant from the to finish her first book of stories. The following year she published Las infantas, a book that received a very positive critique from Chilean reviewers, as well as writer Roberto Bolaño:
Meruane published two novels before leaving for New York to do her doctorate studies in Spanish-American literature at New York University. In the United States she received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 2004, and another in 2010 from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011 she received the Anna Seghers-Preis, and the following year she won the 20th Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award for Sangre en el ojo, during the Guadalajara International Book Fair, with a jury made up of the writers Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Antonio Ortuño, and Cristina Rivera Garza.
She currently teaches Latin American literature and cultures at New York University. She was the founder and director of the independent label Brutas Editoras, which published books from Santiago and Manhattan.

Works

Short stories

Nonfiction

Meruane's stories have appeared in the magazines , Two Lines, Bomb, The Literary Review, Nuestra América, Otro cielo, and in the collections Salidas de madre, Relatos & Resaca, Se habla español, Con pasión, Pequeñas resistencias III, MicroQuijote, El futuro no es nuestro, Excesos del cuerpo, and Schiffe aus Feuer, among others.

Awards