Encounters in Comala II | Interview with Cristina Rivera Garza

For the second episode of our podcast we are pleased to have an interview with the recent winner of the Premio Iberoamericano de Letras José Donoso 2021, the writer Cristina Rivera Garza, about her work El invencible verano de Liliana (2021).

Bio Cristina Rivera Garza

Writer, translator, critic, professor, Cristina Rivera Garza was born in Matamoros (Mexico) in 1964. A recent winner of the José Donoso 2021 Award, she holds a PhD in Latin American history and has taught at several Mexican and North American universities. She is currently Distinguished Professor and founder of the PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Houston. Especially recognized for her work Nadie me verá llorar (1999), she is a prolific writer who has written novels, essays, short stories and poetry. She has received numerous awards, including the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize on two occasions, and her latest works include Autobiografía del algodón, published in 2020, and El invencible verano de Liliana, published in 2021. We spoke with her about her latest work. Undoubtedly, her most intimate and biographical text. A novel in which the writer deals with the feminicide of her sister, Liliana Rivera Garza, on July 16, 1990, when she was only 20 years old, at the hands of her partner. A story of pain, a journey into the past that dialogues and seeks justice with and for the present.