Guest of the ilb 2007
Claudia Amengual was
born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1969. She worked as a teacher for a few
years and then as a translator for the state. She does research in
socio-cultural linguistics, studies literature and since 2001 has been
leading a writing workshop.
Amengual has been publishing stories in different journals since 1997,
some of which have won competitions. In her work she deals above all
with the inner world of the human being. She was awarded the Mexican
Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz for her third novel »Desde las
cenizas« (2005; t: From the ashes) with the jury justifying their
decision »because she treats the existential dilemmas of the everyday
with a new vision, questions marriage as an institution, and because
she records the complexity of human relationships with humour, acumen
and irony«. The novel tells the story of a woman who – imprisoned
in familiar routines and used to pleasing everybody – stumbles
unexpectedly into a virtual relationship with an unknown man, something
that opens up unhoped-for new perspectives and possibilities. She
starts becoming more aware of her own needs and eventually stands by
them. She meanwhile discovers that her friends too suffer from an
emotional void and loneliness in their relationships. These individual
conflicts are mirrored in the reality of contemporary Latin America
since the author sets her stories within the crisis and decay of
Uruguay, from where young people in particular are emigrating en masse,
not seeing any future for themselves in that country.
Amengual’s story-telling revolves around the description of emotional
conditions which she then merges with lively dialogue full of wit and
irony taken from everyday speech, as well as new textual forms, such as
e-mail. In the process
the inner logic and noteworthiness of individual figures remain in the
foreground. The author thus succeeds in avoiding one-sided models of
explanation and blame, and instead casts a loving and individual glance
at the internal conflicts of every person and on the difficulties of
human coexistence.
In 2007 she published a new novel, »Más que una sombra« (t: More than a
shadow), in which she deals with the subject of suicide and thereby
sheds light once more on the personal side of social problems. The author lives in Montevideo.
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