Achy Obejas is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ruins, Days of Awe, and three other books of fiction. Her poetry chapbook, This is What Happened in Our Other Life, was both a critical favorite and a best-seller. She edited and translated, into English, Havana Noir, a collection of crime stories by Cuban writers on and off the island. Her translation, into Spanish, of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao / La Breve y Maravillosa Vida de Óscar Wao was a finalist for Spain’s Esther Benítez Translation Prize from the national translator’s association. Her most recent translation, Papi by Rita Indiana, is forthcoming in 2016. In 2014, she was awarded a USA Ford Fellowship for her writing and translation. She is a founding member of the Creative Writing faculty at the University of Chicago, a member of the Editorial Board of In These Times and the editorial advisory board of the Great Books Foundation, and currently serves as the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., where she lives with her wife, Megan Bayles, and their son Ilan. In summer 2016, Mills will debut its low-residency MFA in translation, a program conceived by Achy, which she will co-direct. For more information, go to http://www.mills.edu/mfa-translation or write translation@mills.edu.
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