Please note: This talk will be given in Spanish.
About the presenter: Brenda Navarro is a Mexican novelist whose work explores migration, motherhood, and social inequality, delving into the experiences of marginalized communities, particularly women and migrants. Her debut novel, Casas vacías (Empty Houses. London: Daunt Books, 2018), garnered significant acclaim, winning the Tigre Juan Award and the English Pen Translation Award. This success was further amplified by her second novel, Ceniza en la boca [Eating Ashes] (2022; English translation forthcoming July 2025), which won numerous awards in Spain (among others, the Cálamo Award for the best book published in 2022, the Madrid Bookstores Association Award for the best book published in 2022, and the Arcebispo Juan de San Clemente Award for the best book published in Spanish language in 2023). Her participation in the prestigious International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2023 underscores her recognition within the international literary community. These accolades highlight the impact and resonance of Navarro‘s writing within Mexico, Spain (where she currently lives), and internationally (as the translations of her work into more than twelve languages attest). Beyond her fiction, Navarro is a prominent voice in Mexican and Spanish media, contributing to well-known publications such as El País, Tierra Adentro, La Marea, El Salto, and Milenio. She also received a Licenciatura in Sociology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and an MA in Gender, Women and Citizenship Studies from the Universitat de Barcelona.
Brenda Navarro, Ha sido coordinadora de programas literarios, redactora, guionista y editora. Ha ganado diversos premios literarios en España y ha finalista al Premio de la Bienal Vargas Llosa 2023. Fue parte del International Writing Program de la Universidad de Iowa en 2023 y Visiting Assistant Professor en el MFA de Escritura creativa en la misma institución en la primavera del 2025. Sus obras han sido traducidas a más de diez idiomas.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish & Portuguese.