Wendy Guerra

Wendy Guerra
Born	1970 Cuba, Cienfuegos
Nationality	Cuban
Notable work	Todos se van
Movement	Novel

Wendy Guerra (born 11 December 1970 in Cienfuegos, Cuba) is a Cuban poet and novelist. Guerra contributes to different magazines, such as Encuentro, La gaceta de Cuba, and Nexos, as well as visual arts magazines. Reviewing the U.S. edition of Guerra's novel Everyone Leaves in 2013, NPR's Alan Cheuse noted "she describes with a freshness and intensity I haven't read before."

Biography

In 1970, the year that Guerra was born, her family moved from a small village to Cienfuegos, on Cuba's southern coast. Guerra's first collection, Platea a oscuras, won her a prize from the University of Havana when she was barely 17. She then took a degree in film making at Havana’s Instituto Superior de Arte. She kept a diary during this time. Guerra’s diaries formed the basis for her first novel, Todos Se Van (Everyone's Leaving), which was published in 2006, and followed its young protagonist through childhood and adolescence in Cuba. After she returned to Cuba from Spain, where she had gone to receive the Bruguera Prize, she was removed as the hostess of her television program.

Guerra’s perception of writing is very personal; she works with life and with history. It’s the country she was born in--Cuba--that inspires her.

Guerra has been a guest lecturer at Princeton University and Dartmouth College.

Poetry

• Platea a oscuras, 1987.
• Cabeza rapada, 1996.
• Ropa interior, 2008.
• A Cage Within, 2013 (Guerra's first poetry collection in the U.S., prior to relaxation of tensions between Cuba and the U.S., translated by Elizabeth Polli and published by Harbor Mountain Press)

Novels

• Todos se van (Everyone's Leaving), Barcelona: Bruguera, 2006. First Bruguera prize in 2006.
• Nunca fui primera dama, Barcelona: Bruguera, 2008.
• Everyone Leaves, 2013 (translated by Achy Obejas, published by amazoncrossing)

External links

• http://www.criticasmagazine.com/article/CA6371850.html
• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1817288/
• Video interview of Wendy Guerra on Havana Cultura