Luisa Valenzuela
(b. 1938)

Luisa Valenzuela is one of the most celebrated contemporary female authors in Latin America. In an interview for The Paris Review (Winter, 2001), Valenzuela said of writing "… journalism requires a horizontal gaze; it is absolutely factual. On the other hand, fiction requires a vertical gaze–delving deeper into the non-facts, the unconscious, the realm of the imaginary. These are two very different ways of seeing the world."

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Valenzuela was raised in an academic environment. Her father was a physician and her mother was a writer. During her career, Valenzuela has worked as both a journalist and a writer of fiction.

As a journalist, Valenzuela was the editor of the Sunday supplement in La Nacion, a Buenos Aires newspaper. She was also an editor for Crisis, a socio-political literary magazine and a reporter for the popular magazine Gente.

Valenzuela began her fiction-writing career at the age of 17 when her first short story, "Ciudad ajena," was published. In 1958, she moved to Paris, France, where she wrote her first novel Hay que sonreír (1966), translated as Clara. Valenzuela received a Fulbright grant in 1969 to participate in the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa. There, she wrote her third novel, El gato eficaz (1972), translated as Cat-O-Nine Deaths. Her prose has been described as "critical and revolutionary." In her novels, Valenzuela criticizes Argentine politics and the treatment of women.

Valenzuela came to the United States in 1979 to escape from the oppressive Argentine government. She returned to Buenos Aires in 1989, several years after democracy had been restored to Argentina.

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