Mayra Santos-Febres

Mayra Santos-Febres (born 1966 in Carolina) is a Puerto Rican author, poet, novelist, professor of literature, essayist, and literary critic and author of children's books.[1] Her work focuses primarily on themes of diaspora identity, female sexuality, the erotic, gender fluidity, desire, and power.[2] She has been an influence in bringing about new youth writers in Puerto Rico. She is also a community activist helping bring books and stories to the less fortunate.[3] Her work has been translated into French, English, German, and Italian, and is taught in many universities in the United States.[4][5]

Mayra Santos-Febres
Born1966 (age 53–54)
Carolina, Puerto Rico
Notable worksPez de Vidrio (translated to English as Urban Oracles), Sirena Selena vestida de pena
Notable awardsGuggenheim Fellowship, long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Juan Rulfo Award, Letras de Oro
Website
mayrasantosfebres.blogspot.com

Early life

Santos-Febres was born in 1966 to parents who were both schoolteachers. Santos-Febres first began writing at the age of five because her asthma did not permit her to "climb trees or ride bikes like the other boys in the neighborhood."[6] She states that her disability, combined with her educator parents' knack for keeping books and papers around the house, catapulted her into the beginnings of her writing career. At the age of fifteen, after writing for ten years, she was encouraged to take her writing seriously by Ivonna Sanavitis, the only female teacher who was not a nun at her Catholic school.

Education and academic work

Santos-Febres completed her undergraduate work at the University of Puerto Rico in 1991 and currently holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard university and Cornell University.[1][7]

Career and literary work

While still an undergraduate at the University of Puerto Rico, Santos-Febres had her work published in several international magazines and journal reviews such as Casa de las Américas in Cuba, Página doce in Argentina, Revue Noire in France and Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, in New York. Her work has been translated into French, English, German, and Italian, and is taught in many universities in the United States.[4][5] In 1991, Santos-Febres published her first two collections of poetry, Anamu y manigua and El orden escapado, to critical acclaim.[8] In 1994, Santos-Febres won the Letras de Oro literary prize for her collection of short stories Pez de Vidrio.[9] "Oso Blanco," a short story from this collection, also won the Juan Rulfo Award in 1996.[10][11] Pez de Vidrio (published in English as Urban Oracles) contains 15 short stories about the complicated relationships between sexual desire, race, identity, social status, and political status in modern Caribbean society.

Sirena Selena vestida de pena (Spain: Grijalbo Mondadori, 2000), which focuses on the life of a teenaged drag queen who works in the streets and has a talent for singing boleros, was Ms. Santos-Febres first novel. A finalist for the 2001 Rómulo Gallego’s Prize for the Novel, it won the PEN Club of Puerto Rico’s prize for Best Novel, and was subsequently translated into English and Italian. When Random House Mondadori published her second novel, Cualquier miércoles soy tuya, in 2002, the first edition sold out in a month; a second edition, issued in Spain and the Americas, did nearly as well; an English translation was published by Penguin Books. Her third novel, Nuestra Señora de las noche (Rayo/HarperCollins, 2008), placed as a finalist for the Premio Primavera Literary Award, and captured Puerto Rico’s 2007 Premio Nacional de Literatura. Her more recent publications include a collection of essays called Sobre piel y paper, as well as a novel about Isabel la Negra, titled Nuestra Señora de la Noche (Our Lady of the Night).[12] Santos-Febres' most recent novel is La amante de Gardel (2015).

Santos-Febres is also well known as an essayist and book critic, and she reviews books regularly on Univision television. She also hosts the Radio Universidad show En su tinta. In her academic work as teacher and researcher, she specializes in African, Caribbean, and feminist literature.

Santos-Febres currently teaches at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, and is the Executive Director of Festival de la Palabra in Puerto Rico.[1][7][13]

Awards and notability
  • Award for poetry from Revista Tríptico in Puerto Rico 1991
  • Award Letras de Oro 1994
  • Award Juan Rulfo de cuentos 1996
  • Award Rómulo Gallegos 2001
  • awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship 2009
  • long-listed for the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Bibliography
  • Anamu y manigua (1990)
  • El orden escapado (1991)
  • Pez de vidrio (1994) (Winner of the Juan Rulfo Award)
  • El cuerpo correcto (1996)
  • Urban Oracles (1997) (English translation of Pez de vidrio)
  • Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) (translated as Sirena Selena, 2000)
  • Tercer mundo (2000)
  • Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002) (translated as Any Wednesday, I'm Yours, 2005)
  • Sobre piel y papel (2005)
  • Boat People (2005)
  • Ernesto , El domador de los suenos (2008)
  • Nuestra Señora de la Noche (2006) (translated as Our Lady of the Night, 2009)
  • Fe en disfraz (2009)
  • Tratado de Medicina Natural para Hombres Melancólicos (2011)
  • El baile de la vida (2012)
  • La amante de Gardel (2015)

See also

References
  1. https://es.slideshare.net/evahildarodriguez/mayra-santos-febres-biografa. Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&u=unc_main&id=GALE%257CCX3444701125&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&userGroup=unc_main&authCount=1
  3. Celis Salgado, Nadia; Febres, Mayra Santos (January 1, 2008). ""Mayra Santos-Febres: El lenguaje de los cuerpos". A Body of One's Own: Conversations with Caribbean Women Writers". Hispanic Studies Faculty Publications.
  4. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Mayra Santos-Febres". Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  5. Escritores.org. "Santos-Febres, Mayra". www.escritores.org (in Spanish). Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  6. "Entrevista con Mayra Santos Febres". www.barcelonareview.com. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  7. "How Puerto Ricans Do So Much, When We're So Few". La Respuesta. October 23, 2014. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  8. "Mayra Santos-Febres." John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2012. Web. April 6, 2015. .
  9. Agency, Vilar Creative. "Mayra Santos-Febres". Vilar Creative Agency. Archived from the original on April 17, 2016. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
  10. Molero, Jose Antonio. "Fernando Schwartz Gana La X Edición Del Premio Primavera De Novela." Gibralfaro. University of Malaga, March 8, 2006. Web. February 27, 2012.
  11. "Mayra Santos-Febres." Vilar Creative Agency (Author Profile). Web. April 6, 2015.
  12. Santos-Febres, Mayra. Our Lady of the Night. Trans. from the Spanish by Ernesto Mestre-Reed. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-173130-3
  13. "Mayra Santos-Febres: "El Festival de la Palabra va"". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). August 31, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
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