CARMEN BOULLOSA

Carmen Boullosa was born in Mexico City, 1954 and so far has published seven novels, such as El Mèdico de los Piratas (1992), La Milagrosa (1993) and Duerme (1994). The latter has been published in Dutch recently. Son vacas, somos puercos (1991) became her most widely discussed and most popular book. She started off her career by writing poetry, but she also produced stage plays.

In 1989 Carmen Boullosa received one of Mexico's most prestigious literary honours, the Premio Xavier Billaurrutia, for her novel Antes which got published earlier that year, for her collection of poems La Savalje and for the essays Papeles Irresponsables - a variety of works which amply demonstrates her versatility.

In her novel Son vacas, somos puercos she describes a male community in the seventeenth century. Pirates settle on the isle of Tortuga , from which they ship goods to the 'New World '. For some reason women are not allowed on the isle. The story is told from the point of view of the Dutchman, Smeeks who published De Americaensche Zeerovers (The American Pirates) in Amsterdam in 1687. Her novel promptly became a best-seller in Mexico and got praised for its author's sharp irony, her feeling for action and adventure.

In Llanto - novelas imposibles (1992) Carmen Boullosa set herself the near impossible task of describing the Aztec King Montezoma's reappearance in 1989, thereby confronting the present with the Mexico of yesteryear.

Thanks to a scholarship, Carmen Boullosa works in the Berlin Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst. Her participation as a prose writer in the Rotterdam Festival of Latin American Film & Literature was widely acclaimed.

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