Achy Obejas

Contact Information

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Chair
Writer-in-Residence
Latin American and Latino Studies & English
aobejas@depaul.edu

Biography

Achy Obejas is the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Chair in Latin American and Latino Studies and the Department of English.  She is a writer of impressive range and accomoplishment, having written a number of novels (including Memory Mambo and Days of Awe), short fiction, poetry, and translations and published award-winning journalism.  Her most recent novel, Ruins, will be published in March 2009.  Her translation, into Spanish, of Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winning The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, will be released in September 2008.  Her fiction and poetry have appeared in many journals and anthologies.  As an award-winning journalist, she worked for more than ten years that the Chicago Tribune writing and reporting about arts and culture.  Among literally thousands of stories, she helped cover Pope John Paul II's historic 1998 visit to Cuba, the arrival of Al-Queda prisoners in Guantanamo, the Versace murder, and the AIDS epidemic.  She currently writes about music for the Washington Post.

During her career, Achy has received a Pulitzer for a Tribune team investigation, the Studs Terkel Journalism Prize, several Peter Lisagor journalism honors, two Lambda Literary awards, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, and residencies at Yaddo, Ragdale and the Virginia Center for the Arts, among other honors.