Sandra Benitez (March 26, 1941 - July 25, 2024) was an American novelist.
Sandra Benitez | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Sandra Jeanette Ables March 26, 1941 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Died | July 25, 2024 (aged 83) Minneapolis, MN, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Language | English |
| Education | Northeast Missouri State University (BS, MA) |
| Notable awards |
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Life
editSandra Jeanette Ables, better known by her pen name Sandra Benitez (Benitez being her Puerto Rican mother's maiden name) spent the first fourteen years of her childhood in El Salvador while her father was based there as a diplomat. At the urging of her father, she attended high school in rural, northern Missouri with her paternal grandparents and subsequently graduated with a B.S. (1962) from Northeast Missouri State University. Later she returned to her alma mater to earn an M.A. (1974)[1]
In 1975 she moved with her then husband and two sons to the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota where she would remain for the rest of her life. After teaching and working as a translator she began seriously writing and in 1993, her first novel, A Place Where The Sea Remembers, was published by Coffee House Press.
In 1997 she was selected as the University of Minnesota Edelstein-Keller Distinguished Writer in Residence. In 1998 she did the Writers Community Residency for the YMCA National Writer’s Voice program. In the spring of 2001 she held the Knapp Chair in Humanities as Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of San Diego.[2][3]
Awards
edit- 2004 Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature.[4]
- 2006 United States Artists Gund Fellow[5]
- 1998 American Book Award, for Bitter Grounds
Works
edit- A Place Where the Sea Remembers. Simon & Schuster. 1993. ISBN 978-0-671-89267-8.
- Bitter Grounds. Macmillan. 1998. ISBN 978-0-312-19541-0.
- The Weight of All Things. Hyperion. 2002. ISBN 978-0-7868-8703-3.
Sandra Benitez.
- Night of the Radishes. Hyperion. January 2004. ISBN 978-0-7868-6400-3.
- Bag Lady: A Memoir, The Triumphant True Story of Loss, Illness and Recovery. Benitez Books. 2005. ISBN 978-0-9774848-0-5.
Anthologies
edit- Mickey Pearlman, ed. (15 October 1997). "Home Views". A Place Called Home: Twenty Writing Women Remember. St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 978-0-312-17443-9.
- Marilyn Kallet, Judith Ortiz Cofer, ed. (1999). "Fire, Wax, Smoke". Sleeping with One Eye Open. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-2153-0.
References
edit- ^ Nicolás Kanellos (2003). Hispanic literature of the United States: a comprehensive reference. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-57356-558-5.
- ^ "Voices from the Gaps".
- ^ "Minnesota Author Biographies Project: Sandra Benitez". Archived from the original on 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2009-11-29.
- ^ "Hispanic Heritage Awards for Literature". Hispanic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 11 January 2011.
- ^ "Sandra Benitez". United States Artists. Retrieved 2018-08-28.
External links
edit- "Author Interview: Sandra Benitez", Book Browse
- Farhat Iftekharrudin, ed. (2003). "Sandra Benitez and the Nomadic Text". Postmodern approaches to the short story. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32374-4.