Luisa Valenzuela (born November 26, 1938, in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a post-'Boom' novelist and short story writer. Her writing is characterized by an experimental, avant-garde style which questions hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. She is best known for her work written in response to the dictatorship of the 1970s in Argentina. Works such as Como en la guerra (1977), Cambio de armas (1982) and Cola de lagartija (1983) combine a powerful critique of dictatorship with an examination of patriarchal forms of social organization and the power structures which inhere in human sexuality and gender relationships.
Luisa Valenzuela was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 26, 1938, to Pablo Franciso Valenzuela, a physician, and to writer Luisa Mercedes Levinson. At her mother's house various writers gathered such as Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges and Ernesto Sabato. Though she felt an interest in natural sciences from an early age, at 17 she began publishing in several newspapers, such as Atlantida, El Hogar and Esto Es, and worked for Radio Belgrano, as well. At 20, just barely married to Theodore Marjak, a French merchant marine, she moved to Paris where she worked for Radio Television Francaise, and met members of both the nouveau roman literary movement and Tel Quel. She published her first fiction work entitled Clara (Hay que sonreir), whose main character would give its name to the title of the book of both English and French translations. In 1958, Luisa Valenzuela gave birth to her daughter Anna-Luisa. In 1961 she moved back to Argentina, where she worked as a journalist for La Nacion and Crisis magazine. In 1965 she got divorced. During 1967 and 1968 she traveled throughout Bolivia, Peru and Brazil working for La Nacion.
In 1969 she obtained the Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Iowa where she wrote The Efficient Cat (El gato eficaz). Between 1972 and 1974 she lived in Mexico City, Paris and Barcelona, with a brief stay in New York, where she researched the expression of the marginal United States literature as a recipient of the scholarship awarded by Argentina's National Fund for the Arts (Fondo Nacional de las Artes). As a consequence of the National Reorganization Process, that partially censored her novel He Who Searches (Como en la guerra) by removing a torture scene, she moved to the United States where she lived for ten years. There she published in 1982 her short fiction book Change of Guard (Cambio de armas) and in 1983 The Lizard's Tail (Cola de lagartija), a novel about Jose Lopez Rega, Minister of Social Welfare during Maria Estela Martinez's presidency that was supposed to be originally titled as Red Ant Sorcerer, Lord of Tacuru and Her Sister Estrella (El Brujo Hormiga Roja, Senor del Tacuru y su Hermana Estrella).
Luisa Valenzuela was a Resident Writer at the Center for Interamerican Relations at New York and Columbia University, where she taught writing workshops and seminars for ten years. She was a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities, at the Fund for Free Expression and member of the Freedom to Write Committee of the PEN American Center. In 1983 she was awarded the Guggenheim Scholarship. In 1989 she returned to Buenos Aires, where she finished her fiction works National Reality from Bed (Realidad nacional desde la cama), conceived initially as a play but finished as a novel and Black novel with Argentines (Novela negra con argentinos) that originally was meant to bear the title of The Motive (El motivo).
1965 Kraft Award
1966 Premio del Instituto Nacional de Cinematografia
1969 Fulbright Scholarship (International Writing Program, University of Iowa)
1972 Scholarship of Argentine "Fondo Nacional de las Artes" for investigations in New York City
1981/82 Fellow of the Institute for the Humanities of New York University
1983 Guggenheim-Scholarship
1985 Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University
Honorary Doctor of University of Knox, Illinois
1997 Medal "Machado de Assis" of Academia Brasilera de Letras
2004 Premio Astralba (University of Puerto Rico)
2011 Elected Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Hay que sonreir. Buenos Aires: Editorial Americalee, 1966. (CD-Rom: Buenos Aires, Ediciones La Margarita Digital, 2004).
El gato eficaz. Mexico: Ediciones Joaquin Mortiz, 1972. (reprints: Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1991, 2001). ISBN 950-515-123-3
Como en la guerra. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1977. (reprints: La Habana: Ediciones Casa de las Americas, 2001).
Cola de lagartija. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bruguera, 1983. (reprints: Mexico: Difusion Cultural, UNAM, 1992. Mexico: Planeta, 1998). ISBN 950-561-038-6
Realidad nacional desde la cama. Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1990, 1993. ISBN 950-694-127-0
Novela negra con argentinos. Barcelona: Ed. Plaza y Janes, 1990. (reprints: Hanover (N.H.): Ediciones del Norte, 1990. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1991). ISBN 84-01-38171-1 ISBN 9500706695 ISBN 0-910061-44-0
La Travesia. Buenos Aires: Editorial Norma, 2001. (reprints: Editorial Alfaguara, Mexico, 2002, Bogota 2002). ISBN 987-545-026-X ISBN 9580465916
El Manana. Buenos Aires: Editorial Seix Barral, 2010.
Cuidado con el tigre. Buenos Aires: Editorial Seix Barral, 2011.
La mascara sarda, el profundo secreto de Peron. Buenos Aires: Editorial Seix Barral, 2012.
Clara (the novel). Latin American Literary Review/Press, USA 1999.
The Lizard's Tail (a novel). Farrar, Straus and Giroux, USA 1983. (reprint: Serpent's Tail, England 1987). ISBN 0-374-18994-3
He Who Searches (a novel). Dalkey Archive Press, USA 1986.
Black Novel (with Argentines). Simon & Schuster. USA 1992. (reprint: Allen & Unwin, Australia 1992. Latin American Literary Review Press, USA 2001). ISBN 0-671-68764-6 ISBN 1891270133
Bedside Manners (a novel). Serpent's Tail/High Risk. USA, 1995. (reprint: Serpent's Tail, UK, 1995). ISBN 1-85242-313-7
Los hereticos. Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos, 1967.
Aqui pasan cosas raras. Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1975 and 1991.
Libro que no muerde. Mexico: Difusion Cultural, UNAM, 1980.
Cambio de armas. Ediciones del Norte, Hanover, 1982. (reprints: Mexico: Martin Casilla Editores, 1982. Buenos Aires: Editorial Norma, 2004).
Donde viven las aguilas. Buenos Aires: Editorial Celtia, 1983. ISBN 950-9106-29-1
Simetrias. Buenos Aires: Ed. Sudamericana, 1993. (reprint: Barcelona: Ed. Plaza y Janes, 1997). ISBN 950-07-0899-X
Antologia personal. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Desde la Gente, 1998. ISBN 950-860-069-1
Cuentos completos y uno mas. Mexico / Buenos Aires: Alfaguara, 1999, 2001. ISBN 968-19-0509-1
Simetrias/Cambio de Armas (Luisa Valenzuela y la critica). Valencia: Ediciones ExCultura, 2002.
El placer rebelde. Antologia general. Prologo y seleccion de Guillermo Saavedra. Buenos Aires, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2003. ISBN 950-557-575-0
Microrrelatos completos hasta hoy. Cordoba (Arg.): Editorial Alcion, 2004.
Trilogia de los bajos fondos (Hay que sonreir, Como en la guerra, Novela negra con argentinos). Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2004.
Clara, 13 short stories and a novel. Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, USA 1976. ISBN 1-891270-09-5
Strange Things Happen Here. 19 short stories and a novel. Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, USA 1979. ISBN 0-15-185782-2
Other Weapons. Ediciones del Norte/Persea Books, USA 1985. ISBN 0-910061-22-X
Open Door (selected short stories). North Point Press, USA 1988. (Neuere Ausgabe: Serpent's Tail. England 1992). ISBN 0-86547-310-2
The Censors (selected short stories, bilingual edition). Curbstone Press, USA 1992. ISBN 0-915306-12-3
Symmetries (short stories). Serpent's Tail/ High Risk. USA & England 1998. ISBN 1-85242-543-1
"A family for Clotilde", in Wendy Martin, The art of short story. USA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
"Blind dates", in Pretext, Number 11, London 2005.
Peligrosas Palabras. Buenos Aires: Editorial Temas, 2001. (reprint: Mexico: Editorial Oceano, 2002). ISBN 987-9164-54-7
Escritura y Secreto. Mexico: Editorial Ariel, 2002. (reprint: Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2003). ISBN 84-375-0534-8
Los deseos oscuros y los otros (cuadernos de New York). Buenos Aires: Ed. Norma, 2002. ISBN 987-545-079-0
