She has been referred to as the "Queen of the Micro-Story" in the world of Spanish literature.[5]
Career
Early life and education
Born Ana María Schoua (the original spelling for her surname) in Buenos Aires in 1951,[6] Shua became interested in writing at a young age, inspired by books such as Black Beauty.[7] She published her first book on poetry, El sol y yo, in 1967 when she was only a sixteen-year-old student at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires,[8] having won a prize from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes that paid for the printing of 1,000 copies.[6] The collection won the "Faja de Honor" award given by the Argentine Society of Writers.[9][3][10]
During the last military dictatorship in Argentina, often called the National Reorganization Process, Shua took a boat to Europe and went into exile in France, part of a wave of exiled political figures and intellectuals. Her sister and her two cousins were also exiled.[13] She lived in Paris from 1976 to 1977, working for the Spanish magazine Cambio 16.[14][15]
Return to Argentina and literary success
Once back in Argentina, Shua published her first novel: Soy paciente, released in 1980, for which she won an award given by the Losada publishing house.[16] The book is often read as a metaphor for the military dictatorship, which was still in power at the time.[17]
The following year she published her first short-story collection, Los días de pesca, followed in 1984 by her first commercial success, the novel Los amores de Laurita.[18] That same year, she published La sueñera, her first collection of microfiction—the extremely short stories that would become her signature, also sometimes known in English as "flash fiction."[19] Shua had been working on La sueñera for 10 years before it was published.[20]
Since then, she has published the works of microfiction Casa de Geishas, Botánica del caos, Temporada de fantasmas, Cazadores de letras (a compilation that includes her first four microfiction collections), and Fenómenos de circo.[21] In explaining her affection for the genre, Shua has said:
"I really like to feel that I am inside a text in which every word is essential, in which rhythm and sound are as important as meaning and cannot be separated."[22]
She has also described the super-short format as requiring authors "to work with the knowledge of the reader, like in martial arts, where you take advantage of the force of your opponent."[23]
In 1994, she was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship to write her novel El libro de los recuerdos, which tells the story of a Jewish family in Argentina,[16] somewhat based on her own family's history.[13]
A complete collection of her stories was published in 2009 under the title Que tengas una vida interesante,[26] and an English translation of some of her stories was published the same year under the title Microfictions.[27] Other English translations include The Book of Memories, Quick Fix, and Circus Freaks.[28]
Awards and recognition
Ana María Shua being interviewed for the documentary film En el nombre del padre.
Her 1997 novel La muerte como efecto secundario was included on the International Congress of the Spanish Language's list of the 100 best Spanish novels of the quarter-century.[31]
Shua was the recipient of the first Juan José Arreola Ibero-American Prize for Mini-Fiction in 2016.[32]
Personal life
Shua's parents were Jewish, of Polish and Lebanese origin,[13] although her father was a militant atheist and she was raised largely without religion. But, Shua has said, "To be Jewish you don't have to study, nor believe, nor know anything in particular: it is not something that you choose," and Jewish themes have appeared occasionally in her work.[6]
As a fiction writer, Shua has said she avoids reading nonfiction, including reviews and literary criticism of her own work.[22]
She is married to the architect and photographer Silvio Fabrykant, whom she wed in 1975.[33] The couple has three children: Gabriela, Vera, and Paloma Fabrykant.[34]
^ abShua, Ana María, 1951- (August 2016). La fábrica del terror 1. Sanzol, Jorge (1a ed.). Buenos Aires. ISBN978-950-07-5633-4. OCLC987436420.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Cook, Alyce (2003). "Review: All Facets of Ana María Shua's Creative World Reviewed Work: El río de los sueños: Interamer. 70. Organización de los Estados Americanos by Rhonda Dahl Buchanan". Confluencia. 19 (1). University of Northern Colorado: 191–193. JSTOR27922969.
^Buchanan, Rhonda Dahl (1998). "Narrating Argentina's "Epoca del Miedo" in Ana María Shua's "El libro de los recuerdos"". Confluencia. 13 (2): 84–91. ISSN0888-6091. JSTOR27922623.
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