Luisa Valenzuela

Novelist and short story writer whose work explores themes of magical realism and is characterized by an experimental, avant-garde style which questions hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. Bewteen 1979 abd 1989 she was a Writer in Residence at Columbia University and Later at NYU's Writing Division (Berg Chair). She has been vastly translated and her short stories appear in countless international anthologies. She has earned many prizes, was a Rockefeller Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities, was awarded the Machado de Assis medel from the Brazilian Academy of Letters and an honorary degree from Knox College, Illinois, amidst other nominations. There is a wide and international range of books and of critical essays written on her literary work. In addition, many conferences and symposia have been dedicated to her body of work in different countries, to include the Monterrey (Mexico) Book Fair, the University of Vienna, the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (MALBA), the Puterbaugh COnference in Oklahoma. She is frequently invited to lecture world wide and recently was named Honorary Professor of the University of Korea in Seoul.