Mayra Santos-Febres

Born in Carolina, PuertoRico 1966. She studied literature at the University of Puerto Rico and a Ph. D. at Cornell University.   She has been a visiting scholar at Rutgers (1992), Cornell (1994) and Harvard University (2004) as well as  Complutense University in Spain (2013), Autonomous University of México, at Yucatán campus (2008) and Leipzing University in Holland (2005).   She co-created the Creative Writing Program for the University of Puerto Rico, and founded and directed The Word/ Festival de la Palabra, the most internationally recognized Literary Festival in Puerto Rico (2010-2009) . Content Coordinator of Interdisciplinary and Multicultural Institute at the UPR, Mayra Santos –Febres in currently the Principal Investigator for the development of University of Puerto Rico’s Afro Diasporic and Race Studies Program, which has been recently awarded with a Mellon Foundation grant for academic diversification.

As a writer, Mayra Santos-Febres has won many international prizes and recognition, such as the Letras de Oro Award (Spain, 1994) the Radio France Juan Rulfo Award ( 1998), the Premio Primavera Award, Spain ( 201) for her novel  Nuestra Señora de la Noche  and the John S. Simmon Guggenheim Fellowship (2008) as well as the Rockefeller Bellagio Center Residency (2018). Her literary work has been translated into French, English, Italian, Rumanian, Korean, Portuguese and Islandic. She has published the poetry collections Anamú y manigua (1990) , El orden escapado (1991), Boat People (1994), Tercer Mundo (2004), Lecciones de renuncia (2021), Huracanada (2018). Her publications in short story include Pez de vidrio y otros cuentos, El cuerpo correcto, Un pasado posible y Mujeres violentas. She has also published the novels Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2001), Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002) , Fe en disfraz (2009), Nuestra Señora de la noche (2006) y La amante de Gardel (2015) and the essay Tratado de Medicina Natural para Hombres Melancólicos (2011) y Sobre piel y papel. In 2019 she won the Prix Nationale de Litterature de l’ Academie de Pharmacie  in Paris, France for La amante de Gardel.

Prizes and Publications:

  • First Prize for Poetry from Revista Tríptico in Puerto Rico 1991
  • Award Letras de Oro 1994
  • Award Juan Rulfo de cuentos 1996
  • Award Rómulo Gallegos 2001
  • Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship 2009
  • Long-listed for the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
  • Bibliography
  • Anamu y manigua (1990)
  • El orden escapado (1991)
  • Pez de vidrio (1994) (Winner of the Juan Rulfo Award)
  • El cuerpo correcto (1996)
  • Urban Oracles (1997) (English translation of Pez de vidrio)
  • Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) (translated as Sirena Selena, 2000)
  • Tercer mundo (2000)
  • Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002) (translated as Any Wednesday, I’m Yours, 2005)
  • Sobre piel y papel (2005)
  • Boat People (2005)
  • Ernesto , El domador de los suenos (2008)
  • Nuestra Señora de la Noche (2006) (translated as Our Lady of the Night, 2009)

Press – The Other Julia

Mayra Santos-Febres, recipient of the John S. Guggenheim fellowship, has released her anticipated new novel, La otra Julia (The Other Julia).

Mayra Santos-Febres, the renowned Puerto Rican writer, returns to narrate the short and intense life of Julia de Burgos, revealing a new facet of the iconic poet through the voice of a contemporary writer.

“A supposed contemporary Black Puerto Rican writer studies and writes about a historic poet from the island, Julia de Burgos (1914-1953), and the result is a fascinating double novel about the search for beauty and the difficulty of achieving it if you come from the social margins. It is a book that speaks of discrimination, desires and fears, the brilliance and fury of life, the horror of old age, the bond between mothers and daughters, and, above all, the dignity of having been considered unworthy”.

— Rosa Montero

“Our ancestors don’t have to be family. They can be unwitting mentors for future generations. For artists, motivation arises from the works that inspire us, without the emotional burden of living the same experiences and privations of authors who speak to us long after their voices have fallen silent in this realm. Julia de Burgos’s life inspires the writer and pushes her to understand herself; to learn lessons that help her deal with difficulties and challenges. La otra Julia is a song from one artist to another, a thank you and celebration of both lives, distinct yet connected by art. Bravo!”.

— Esmeralda Santiago

“With tenderness and truth, Mayra Santos-Febres draws a parallel between two writers: Julia de Burgos, the great poet of Puerto Rico, and her biographer, a character who may not be so fictional, two Black women on an island ‘battered by hurricanes, oblivion, and poverty’ who defy destiny, overcome adversity, and know how to shine. A moving and insightful novel”.

— Pilar Quintana

“Forget La Charca! La otra Julia is the Puerto Rican novel we were missing. Written from the heart and perspective of those whom the colonial project of ‘modernity’ failed most profoundly: Black women. If Julia de Burgos is the soul of Puerto Rico, this novel is her living history, and also that of all Caribbean women whose lives she foretold with her own, shattered by the unfulfilled promises of power. Mayra Santos-Febres gives us her most personal novel, a deeply moving work that captures our struggle and our insistence on hope with beauty, with those truths that pierce the soul, that do not let us forget who we are. Where we came from”.

— Anjanette Delgado

About the author

Mayra Santos-Febres is an Afro-Puerto Rican storyteller and poet born in Carolina, on the island’s northeast coast. She has been awarded international fellowships such as the John S. Guggenheim, Ford, Mellon, and Rockefeller Foundation, and prizes including the Juan Rulfo from Radio France Internationale, the Letras de Oro from Spain, the Novel Prize from the Puerto Rican Literature Institute, and the Primavera Novel Prize.

She is the creator of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Puerto Rico, as well as the founder and director of the Festival de la Palabra (2009-2018) and the #Quenoseacabenlaspalabras Program. In 2016, she founded the Las Ancestras Women Writers Collective, which offers creative writing workshops in women’s prisons, girls’ and adolescents’ shelters, and supports memory and writing projects. In 2023, she became the Principal Investigator of the Research Center for Studies in Afro-Descendancy and Racialization and the Virtual Afro Archive.

She has taught at Harvard, Complutense University, University of Houston, Rutgers, Baltimore, Autonomous University of Yucatán, among others. Her works have been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, and Romanian.

About the book

    The narrator of this novel, a writer, has published a biography about the emblematic and controversial Julia de Burgos. What begins as a simple commission ends up being a way to better understand the character and her work, but also a map to understand the lives of so many Latin American authors, including that of the author herself. With her book, she travels through different cities, attends presentations, and gives conferences, while trying to keep her family afloat. Intertwining her own life with that of the narrator and Julia Burgos, Mayra Santos-Febres constructs a passionate narrative about the difficult lives of Afro-Caribbean writers who make their way in the elitist literary circles of their country. This is the story of two women who make literature a place of resistance and freedom.

    “Forget La Charca! La otra Julia is the Puerto Rican novel we were missing. Written from the heart and perspective of those whom the colonial project of ‘modernity’ failed most profoundly: Black women. If Julia de Burgos is the soul of Puerto Rico, this novel is her living history, and also that of all Caribbean women whose lives she foretold with her own, shattered by the unfulfilled promises of power. Mayra Santos-Febres gives us her most personal novel, a deeply moving work that captures our struggle and our insistence on hope with beauty, with those truths that pierce the soul, that do not let us forget who we are. Where we came from”.

    — Anjanette Delgado