Biography

Mayra Santos-Febres is an Afro-Puerto Rican writer born in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Her career has led her to gain recognition through awards and international scholarships such as the John S. Guggenheim, Ford, Mellon and Rockefeller Foundation. the Radio France International Award, the Letras de Oro from Spain, the Novel Award from the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature and the Primavera Novel Award (1st runner-up, among others. Her works have been translated into Croatian, Icelandic, Portuguese, Italian, French and English. Creator of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Puerto Rico, she has taught at Harvard, Complutense University, Houston Rutgers University, Baltimore, and the Autonomous University of Yucatán, among others. In 2016, she founded the Collective of Women Writers "Las Ancestras", which has already helped launch the publications of 3 poems, 1 book of short stories, and offers creative writing workshops in women's prisons, shelters for girls and adolescents, and supports projects of memory and writing in alliances, from the perspective and for the empowerment of latinx/diasporic/racialized/marginalized women. In 2020, she co-founded with her spouse and accomplice the visual artist José Arturo Ballester Panelli "Yagrumo: Experimental Image Workshop" and "Sirena Inc: Creative Writing Laboratory"-art and community project, design and digital humanities.