Soledad Puértolas
Writer
Update: 3 January 2011
Contents
(Zaragoza, 1947). Soledad Puértolas is a well-known novelist who has also published short stories, essays and articles of literary criticism. She studied Political Science and Journalism and, at an early age, went to live in Norway and then Santa Barbara, California, where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature at the University of California. On her return to Madrid in 1974, she worked as an adviser to the Ministry of Culture and was director of the publishing house Destino. She made her debut as a novelist in 1979 with the publication of El bandido doblemente armado (The Twice-armed Bandit), winner of the Sésamo Prize, which was followed by Burdeos (1986 – published in English as Bordeaux, Bison Books 1998), Todos mienten (Everyone Lies, 1988) and Queda la noche (The Night Remains, 1989), which won the Planeta Prize. Her most recent novels are Historia de un abrigo (The Story of an Overcoat, Anagrama, 2005), Cielo nocturno (Night Sky, Anagrama, 2008) and Compañeras de viaje (Travel Maids, Anagrama, 2010). In 2001 she was awarded the Glauka Prize in recognition of her literary oeuvre and her intellectual career in general and, in 2003, she received the Aragon Prize for Literature. She was the fifth woman to be named a member of the Royal Spanish Academy where, since November 2010, she occupies seat “g”.