Menchu Gutiérrez

Menchu Gutiérrez (Madrid, 1957), who studied Art and Literature in Madrid and London, is a novelist, poet, essayist and translator. In her work she explores the need to search within the human being for understanding of one’s sense of existence. Notable among her works are the poetry collections El grillo, la luz y la novia (The Cricket, the Light and the Bride, Entregas de la Ventura, 1981); La mordedura blanca (The White Bite Mark), winner of the Ricardo Molina Prize in 1989; El ojo de Newton (Newton’s Eye, Pre-Textos, 2005); and, more recently, Lo extraño, la raíz (The Strange, the Root, Siruela, 2015). Among her prose works the following books stand out: La mujer ensimismada (The Daydreaming Woman, Siruela, 2001), Disección de una tormenta (Dissection of a Storm, Siruela, 2005), Detrás de la boca (Behind the Mouth, Siruela, 2007), El faro por dentro (The Beacon Within, Siruela, 2011), and Araña, cisne, caballo (Spider, Swan, Horse Siruela, 2014). She has also published the literary bibliography San Juan de la Cruz (Saint John of the Cross, Omega, 2003) and an essay on snow and its metaphors, Decir la nieve (Telling Snow), as well as translating authors including Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Joseph Brodsky and W. H. Auden. She has written for a range of newspapers, magazines and cultural supplements, especially those of El País and ABC, and has worked with such artists as Jürgen Partenheimer and Txema Madoz. Her teaching work includes literary workshops and courses at the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Cantabria and UNAM in Mexico City, in addition to organising interdisciplinary seminars at cultural centres like La Casa Encendida (Madrid), the Botín Foundation (Santander) and Arteleku (San Sebastian).