Luisa Valenzuela
1944-
Other Works
He Who Searches
The Lizard's Tail
Open Door
Strange Things Happen Here
An Early Start When Luisa Valenzuela was very young, her older sister used to read her horror stories to make her eat. "I would open my mouth in fright and she would stuff it," she reports. "I swallowed my fear and my fascination along with the food." Valenzuela says she made her first pun at
the age of two, and literature continued to play a role in her life. Her mother was a well-known writer, and their home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was often visited by literary figures. The child read adventure stories while pretending to read great literature. When she took an interest in writing, Valenzuela's career moved quickly. At age 17 she published her first short story.
Traveling and Writing Feeling stifled by Argentina's political situation, the adult Valenzuela lived abroad when she could, working in Paris for the French broadcasting agency, attending the International Writers' Program at the University of Iowa, and becoming a writer-in-residence at Columbia University in New York City. She published her first novel, Something to Smile About, in 1966 and her first story collection, The Heretics, a year later. Valenzuela once said that she writes to shake people up. Much of her best work communicates her ideas about power, politics, and human relationships.
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