Lina Meruane

Lina Meruane studied at New York University. The recorded working language is Spanish and English. The field of work recorded is creative and professional writing, prose and journalism. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are dramaturgy and non-fiction. Employment is recorded with New York University. Works named in the authority record are Seeing Red. Distinctions recorded are Anna Seghers Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, National Council of Culture and the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

• Name — Lina Meruane • Birth Name — Lina Meruane Boza • Born — 1970 • Birthplace — Santiago, Chile • Family — Ricardo Meruane (uncle) Nelly Meruane (great-aunt) • Occupation — Writer, professor • Notable Works — * Fruta podrida (2007) • Sangre en el ojo (2012) • Awards — * Anna Seghers-Preis (2011) • Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize (2012) • Education — New York University

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: There is a generation of (Chilean) writers who promise to devour it all. At the head, clearly, two stand out. These are Lina Meruane and Alejandra Costamagna, followed by Nona Fernández and five or six other young women armed with all the implements of good literature. 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 (for the novel Fruta Podrida), and another in 2010 from the National Endowment for the Arts (for Sangre en el ojo). 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.

• Las infantas, Planeta, Santiago, Chile, 1998 (Eterna Cadencia, Argentina, 2010), • Avidez, Paginas de Espuma, Spain, 2024

• Seeing Red translated by Megan McDowell, Deep Vellum, USA (Atlantic Books, UK, 2016); original edition Sangre en el ojo • Nervous System translated by Megan McDowell, Graywolf, USA, 2021 (Atlantic Books, UK, 2021); original edition Sistema Nervioso

• Póstuma, Planeta, Santiago, 2000 (Oficina Do Livro, Portugal, 2001) • Cercada, Cuarto Propio, Santiago, 2000 (Cuneta Editores, Santiago, 2014 with prologue by Lorena Amaro) • Fruta podrida, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Santiago, 2007 (Eterna Cadencia, 2015), • Sangre en el ojo, Caballo de Troya, Spain, 2012 (Penguin Random House, 2015) • Sistema Nervioso, Penguin Random House, Chile & Spain, 2019

• Un lugar donde caerse muerta / Not a leg to stand on, dramatic adaptation of the novel Fruta podrida by the author and the Chilean theater director Martín Balmaceda; bilingual edition with prologue by Guillermo Calderón and English translation by Sarah Thomas, Diaz Grey Editores, 2012 (Trópico Sur, Uruguay, 2013) • Illustration — Meruane signing her books at the 2016 Puerto de Ideas cultural festival

• Viral Voyages. Tracing AIDS in Latin America, translated by Andrea Rosenberg, Palgrave MacMillan, 2014; original edition Viajes virales: la crisis del contagio global en la escritura del sida, essay, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Santiago 2012, • Volverse palestina, chronicle, Literal Publishing, USA / Conaculta, Mexico, 2013, • Palestina en Pedazos, chronicle/personal essay; Literatura Random House, Santiago, 2021 • Contra los hijos, essay-diatribe, Tumbona, Mexico, 2014, and Penguin Random House, 2018 • Zona Ciega, essay, Penguin Random House, 2021 • Coloquio de las quiltras, essay, Debate, 2024

Two Lines (California), Bomb (New York), The Literary Review (New York), Brick (Canada), N+1 (New York), Words without Borders (New York), Drunken Boat (US), The White Review (UK), Litro Magazine (UK), Brown Book (Arab Emirates), Asymptote (US), among others in several languages.