Lina Meruane
Lina Meruane Boza is a Chilean writer and professor. Her work, written in Spanish, has been translated into 12 languages --English, Italian, Portuguese, German, French and Arabic, among others. In 2011 she won the Anna Seghers-Preis for the quality of her work, in 2012 the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize for her novel Sangre en el ojo.
Biography
Born in Santiago, Chile, Lina Meruane is of Palestinian and Italian descent. She is the niece of actress Nelly Meruane and comedian Ricardo Meruane.She started writing as a storyteller and cultural journalist. In 1997 she received a writing grant from FONDART to finish her first book of stories. The following year she published Las infantas, a book that received a very positive critique from Chilean reviewers, as well as writer Roberto Bolaño:
Meruane published two novels before leaving for New York to do her doctorate studies in Spanish-American literature at New York University. In the United States she received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 2004, and another in 2010 from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2011 she received the Anna Seghers-Preis, and the following year she won the 20th Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize for Sangre en el ojo, during the Guadalajara International Book Fair, with a jury made up of the writers Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Antonio Ortuño, and Cristina Rivera Garza.
Meruane has lived in New York since 2000. As of 2026 she teaches Creative Writing in Spanish and Latin American Cultures, Arts and Cultures at New York University.
Grants and awards
- 1997: Grant. National Council for the Arts, FONDART, Chile, for Las Infantas
- 2004: Grant. John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Latin American and Caribbean Fellowship for Fruta podrida
- 2006: Award. Best Unpublished Novel, for Fruta podrida
- 2010: Grant. National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, for Seeing Red.
- 2011: Award. Anna Seghers-Preis, por her literary work
- 2012: Award. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, for Sangre en el ojo
- 2015: Award. Institute of Chilean-Arab Culture Award, for Volverse Palestina
- 2015: Award. Cálamo Another Look, for Fruta podrida
- 2017: Grant. Artists-in-Berlin Program, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service; for Sistema Nervioso.
- 2023: Award.
Works
Short stories
Las infantas, Planeta, Santiago, Chile, 1998, Avidez, Paginas de Espuma, Spain, 2024Novels translated into English
- Seeing Red translated by Megan McDowell, Deep Vellum, USA, ; original edition Sangre en el ojo
- Nervous System translated by Megan McDowell, Graywolf, USA, 2021 ; original edition ''Sistema Nervioso''