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Photo: José Arturo Ballester Panelli

Mayra Santos-Febres is the author of some twenty books of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism, including the novels Sirena Selena, which was a finalist for the Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize, and, most recently, La amante de Gardel, winner of the Prix Littéraire International de L’Académie de la Pharmacie, France. A Guggenheim Fellow and recent writer-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Residency Program, she is the recipient of the Juan Rulfo Prize for short story, Puerto Rico’s National Literature Prize, and the Primavera Prize (Spain). Currently, Santos-Febres is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she directs the creative writing workshop and Sirena Writing Lab.