Roberto Ampuero

Roberto Ampuero is an award-winning Chilean novelist and columnist.

Biography

Born and raised in Valparaiso, he left to study anthropology and literature at the University of Chile in Santiago. However, after the military coup by Pinochet in 1973, he left Chile. Ampuero first lived in Cuba and studied at the University of Havana (1974-1979), then moved to East Germany (1980-1982), before eventually immigrating to West Germany in 1983. Since then, he has lived in Chile, Sweden, and the United States.

Ampuero attended the prestigious International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1996 and returned to the University of Iowa to study Spanish literature where he obtained his masters and doctoral degrees. Currently, he resides in Iowa City, Iowa where he teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa, writes novels and newspaper columns for the Chilean newspaper, La Tercera and the New York Times syndicate.

His books have been translated into Portuguese, French, German, Croatian, Greek, Italian, and Chinese and have been published in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and Spain. In Chile alone, they have sold more than 200,000 copies.

Literature

Ampuero published his first novel, a young-adult allegory La guerra de los duraznos (The War of the Peaches) while living in West Germany.

Then, in 1993 he published the first novel in the series featuring the detective, Cayetano Brulé, Quien mato a Cristian Kustermann? (Who Killed Cristian Kustermann?). Subsequently, Brulé has appeared in five more detective novels: Boleros En La Habana (Boleros in Havana) ,1994; El Aleman de Atacama (The German of Atacama) ,1996; Cita En El Azul Profundo (Appointment at the Azul Profundo), 2002; Halcones de la Noche (Nighthawks) ,2004; and El Caso Neruda (The Neruda Case,), 2008.

Other Ampuero novels include the autobiographical novel, Nuestros Años Verde Olivo, (Our Years in Olive Green, 1999), which narrates the experience and disillusionment of a revolutionary political exile in Cuba. Also, a postmodernist metafictional murder mystery, Los Amantes de Estocolmo, (The Lovers of Stockholm, 2004) and Pasiones Grieges, (Greek Passions, 2007).

Ampuero has also published a collection of short stories, El Hombre Golondrina: y otros cuentros (1997) and the literary analysis, La historia como conjetura. La narrativa de Jorge Edwards, (The Story as Conjecture. The narrative of Jorge Edwards, 2006).

Lecture

• Lecture in YouTube

Major Awards

•Pasiones Griegas, selected Best Spanish-language novels published in 2006 by The People's Publishing House of China, Beijing.

•Designated an “Illustrious son” by the city of Valparaiso, 2006.

•Los Amantes de Estocolmo, selected as “Book of the Year 2003” by Review of Books, Santiago, Chile.

•¿Quién mato a Cristian Kustermann?, selected by El Mercurio Book Review in 1993.

Sources

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• [2]