Ana María Fuster Lavín’s Callejón de los gatos (Isla Negra 2022) recently won the National Award from International PEN of Puerto Rico. Here are two reviews:
Writer and editor Luis Rodríguez Martínez writes, “’Callejón de los gatos’ is a metaphor for those dark recesses where we hide what we sometimes are, the full existence of human beings defeated by their defects and temptations, misery and hope. Among her stories, we find our everyday violence, intermixed with the lyricism that distinguishes this author’s narrative.”
Angela María Valentín Rodríguez, writer and educator, says, “One of the most important voices in the narrative of our country; to read the work of Ana María Fuster Lavín is to enter a world where the characters wander from story to story, even transcending the borders of the book. She proposes a cosmos that fluctuates between areas, regions, and places that mirror our Island and its substantial problems, and the space of the strange, the uncertain, the unknown, the supernatural.
Ana María Fuster Lavín was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is a narrator, poet, cultural press correspondent, as well as a columnist in various online news outlets. Her texts have been published in national and international press, journals, and anthologies, as well as translated into English, French and Italian. Among her published books, the following stand out: Verdades caprichosas (2002, short stories, awarded by the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature); Réquiem (2005, novella, awarded by the PEN Club of PR); El libro de las sombras (2006, poems, awarded by the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature); [Cuestión de género], Carnaval de sangre 2 (2019, micro stories, National Award from International PEN of Puerto Rico); and La marejada de los muertos y otras pandemias (2020, short stories, National Award from PEN International of Puerto Rico). She has also published: Leyendas de misterio (2006, children’s stories); Bocetos de una ciudad silente (2007, short stories); El cuerpo del delito (2009, poems); El Eróscopo: daños colaterales de la poesía (2010, poems); Tras la sombra de la Luna (2011, poems); (In)somnio (2012, novel), Carnaval de sangre (2015, short stories); Última estación, necrópolis (2018, poems); Mariposas negras (2016, novel) and Al otro lado del puente (2018, poems). [Her YouTube channel is Mariposas negras Ana María Fuster.]
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Ana María Fuster Lavín’s Callejón de los gatos (Isla Negra 2022) recently won the National Award from International PEN of Puerto Rico. Here are two reviews: Writer and editor Luis Rodríguez Martínez writes, “’Callejón de los gatos’ is a metaphor for those dark recesses where we hide what we sometimes are, the full existence of
