Writing & Society Research Centre seminar

Most Latin American writers and certainly, all Chilean writers of my generation, lived through some kind of revolution, and many of us, a dictatorship. Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Perú, Cuba… In my case, the military coup of Pinochet, and then exile, had a profound influence on my life and on my writing. Since I flew from Chile, and landed in a country whose codes and language I didn´t understand, I have felt like an orphan. And that is the place from where I write. CARLA GUELFENBEIN is a Chilean novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Santiago into a family of Russian-Jewish origin. She lived for many years in the UK, where she studied at Essex University and Saint Martin’s School of Art. She has worked as a designer, art director, and editor of Elle Magazine in Chile. Her novels including El revés del alma, La mujer de mi vida, El resto es silencio (The Rest is Silence) and most recently Contigo en la Distancia (In the Distance with You) which won the prestigious Premio Alfaguara de Novela.