Wendy Guerra Torres

Wendy Guerra was born in La Habana in 1970, poet and novelist.

Her mother, Cuban poet Albis Torres, gave her that name in homage to the older sister –who cared for all the motherless children– from the children's literature classic, Peter Pan. Her family moved to the city of Cienfuegos, on the southern coast of Cuba and there she lived several years of her childhood.

Since her childhood she worked as an actress in Film and Television. She graduated in Film Direction, specializing in screenwriting, from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in La Habana.

Her first texts (poems) were published starting at age seven. Her first poems were published at seventeen years old, under the title Platea a oscuras (1987). This poetry collection and another published in 1996, Cabeza rapada, received very good reviews.

She participated in the writing workshop that Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez led every year at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba.

Her novel Todos se van received the Bruguera Editorial Prize. The work was presented under the title Nieve en La Habana and under the pseudonym "Campanilla" she won the prize by virtue of its authenticity and sincerity. She also received the «Critic's Prize» from the Spanish newspaper El País as Best Novel in 2006. Later, she obtained in France, the Carbet des Lycéens Prize in 2009.

She has received several specialization grants: in París, Nueva York, Los Angeles, for researching information about writer Anaïs Nin. From that work came her third novel: Posar desnuda en La Habana. It has been translated into thirteen languages but her novels have not been published in the country of origin.

In 2010, the French government awarded her the Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. She writes for the newspaper El Mundo (España), through her blog Habaname.

Her novels had not been published in Cuba, until in 2014 Posar desnuda en La Habana was published, a title that was presented in the Alejo Carpentier room, at La Cabaña, as part of the 23rd International Book Fair in La Habana.

She has been a jury member at numerous film festivals, including recently the Festival International du Court-Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, Francia, 2012.

Her works have been translated into thirteen languages. She regularly publishes chronicles in El Mundo and the Nuevo Herald. She has given lectures on Cuban literature at universities and institutions in Europe and Latin America.

She is part of the Bogotá 39 group, which brings together 39 voices of relevant Latin American writers.

In 2004 Wendy Guerra's mother died, her relationship with her mother and her loss have greatly marked her work. She is the wife of Cuban musician Ernán López-Nussa.

Works
As actress and host
Solo el amor. Youth Series.
Children's section in Buenos días, news magazine of Tele Rebelde channel
Don Mínimo. Children's Program.
Permiso Para Hablar. Television Series. Jorge Luis Llanes.
Que viva el disparate. Lilo Vilaplanas. Raúl Guerra.
Hello Hemingway. Film. Fernando Pérez- 1990.
Ruptura de comunicaciones.- Film.
¡Ah! La primavera. Manuel Rodríguez- Film.

Poetry
Platea oscura, 1987.
Cabeza rapada, ed. Letras Cubanas, La Habana, 1996
Ropa interior, ed. Bruguera, Barcelona, 2008
Poèmes (inédits), éd. Stock, París, 2009 (joint edition with Serbian poet Sasa Stanisic)
Novel
Todos se van, 2006, ed. Brugera, Barcelona, 2006 / Tout le monde s'en va, éd. Stock, Paris, 2008 / Tutti se ne vano, ed. Le Lettere, Firenze (Italia), 2008 / Alle gehen fort, ed. Lateinamerika, Solothurn (Alemania), 2008 / Всички си тръгват, Sofia, (Bulgaria), 2010 / Alla ger sig av, ed. Bokförlaget Tranan, Estocolmo (Suecia), 2010 / Everyone Leaves, (Estados Unidos), 2012
Nunca fui Primera Dama, ed. Bruguera, Barcelona, 2008 / Mère Cuba, éd. Stock, Paris, 2009 / Nunca fui primeira-dama, ed. Benvira, Brasil, 2010
Negra, ed. Anagrama, Barcelona, 2013
Fiction
Posar desnuda en La Habana. Apocryphal Diary of Anaïs Nin, ed. Alfaguara, 2010 / Poser nue à La Havane, ed. Stock, Paris, 2011
Posar desnuda en La Habana, Letras Cubanas, La Habana, 2013
Domingo de Revolución, Anagrama, 2016

Anthologies
Casa de luciérnagas (anthology of Latin American poets), ed. Bruguera, Barcelona, 2007
39 Anthology of Latin American Short Story, ediciones Colombia, Bogotá, 2007.
Otra Cuba secreta. Anthology of Cuban Poets from the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Verbum, Madrid, 2011.