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Rita Indiana

Rita Indiana Hernández Sánchez (born 11 June 1977) is a Dominican writer, and singer-songwriter. In 2011, she was selected by the newspaper El País as one of the 100 most influential Latino personalities. Her novels prominently feature themes of queerness while the topics of her songs range from social issues to divergent sexuality. Rita Indiana is highly recognized and awarded among the Caribbean literary scene and her viral music success has made Indiana a household name in the Dominican Republic where she is popularly refereed to as "La Monstra" (the monster).

Contents

 * 1Early Life and Education
 * Literary Career
 * Music Career
 * Personal Life and Influence
 * 2Published works
 * 2.1Short stories
 * 2.2Novels
 * 3Discography
 * 3.1Singles
 * 4References
 * 5Further reading

Early Life and Education
Born in Santo Domingo in 1977, Rita Indiana is the grand-niece of the soprano Ivonne Haza and great-great-great-granddaughter of the poet and hero of the Restoration War, Manuel Rodríguez Objío. She is also second cousin of the journalist Óscar Haza and of the politician Víctor Bisonó. She was baptized in honor of her great-grandmother Rita Indiana del Castillo y Rodríguez-Objío.

Rita Indiana attended El Colegio Calasanz in Costa Rica, where her father has established business. After finishing her schooling in Costa Rica, Rita Indiana continued her education in the Dominican Republic at Universidad Autononoma in her birth city of Santo Domingo where she studied Art History. However, she left this course a year after admittance. Rita Indiana then attended Altos de Chavon School of Design but once again left her schooling and decided to seriously pursue a career in writing.

Literary Career
Rita Indiana began her writing career with short stories in the mid 1990's, shortly after leaving Universisdad Autononoma. At the age of eighteen Rita Indiana published her first short stories in the only literary magazine in the Dominican Republic at the time. After leaving Altos de Chavon School of Design, she was able to write and publish her first novel La Estrategia de Chochueca in 2000''. La Estrategia de Chochueca belongs to her trilogy La trilogía de niñas locas, which also include Papi (2005), and Nombres y Animales'' (2013). These are peppered with Dominican slang and colloquialisms and center around exploring the social issues present in the Dominican Republic as well introduce themes of nonconforming sexual identity not previously highlighted in Dominican Literature. Her early work is highly regarded for its authentic portrayal of Caribbean life and is now studied in literature courses across the United States and the Caribbean.

Rita Indiana later explored the genre of science fiction with her novel La mucama de Omicunlé (2017). This science fiction piece became the first Spanish-language work to receive the Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers. In 2019, the same book, translated to English, was published as Tentacle. Her sixth novel, Made in Saturn, will be published by And Other Stories in 2020.

Music Career
Rita Indiana moved to Puerto Rico in the mid 2000's and began exploring the realm of music. Eventually, she produced the single "Altar Epandex in duo with Miti Miti." This single was very well recieved and was chosen by New York City’s Daily News as one of the top 5 indie jewels of 2008. Rita Indiana's sound is heavily inspired by Dominican popular music, and reinvented merengue dancing through her compositions and interpretations of Afro-Caribbean rhythms and electric beats. In 2009, Rita Indiana banded with a group known as Los Misterios and together they went on to release several more singles along with a complete album titled El Juidero in 2010. This album reached viral success across several online plat forms. With her band, Rita appeared at the celebrated venue SOB's in New York and NPR included her El Juidero in their list "Top 10 Latin American Albums of 2010".

Rita Indiana has also written songs for influential Latin American musicians Julieta Venegas and Calle 13.

Personal Life and Influence
Rita Indiana is currently in a relationship with her frequent artistic collaborator, filmmaker Noelia Quintero. This makes Rita Indiana one of the only openly lesbian, androgynous literary and musical figures in the Dominican Republic and has frequently discussed the implication of this situation throughout her career. Through her work and her interviews, Rita Indiana has established a her stance against the social norms surrounding sexual and gender identity in the Caribbean. Aware of the ambiguity of her appearance, the writer rejects the notion of labels and expresses her discomfort with the pressure of these norms and says,"Labels exist because they have a function. . . I’ve been dealing with labels all my life: Tomboy, headbanger, weirdo or lesbian, underground, celebrity. Labels are caricatures." Because of her vocal ideas on queerness, Rita Indiana has become a key advocate in the queer community of the Caribbean and continues to use her work "to create a space in which a heterogeneous, multiple and complex Caribbean reality is reflected."

As of 2012 Rita Indiana resides in Miami.

Short stories

 * Rumiantes, Riann, Santo Domingo, 1998.
 * Ciencia Succión, Amigo del Hogar, 2001.
 * Cuentos y poemas (1998-2003), Ediciones Cielonaranja, Santo Domingo, 2017.

Novels

 * La estrategia de Chochueca, Riann, 2000
 * Papi, Vértigo, 2005; Periférica, 2011
 * Nombres y Animales, Periférica, 2013
 * La mucama de Omicunlé, Periférica, 2015
 * Ten[etacle (English translation of La mucama de Omicunlé), And Other Stories, 2019
 * Made in Saturn, And Other Stories, 2010 (forthcoming)

Discography

 * El Juidero (2010)

Singles

 * "Altar Epandex in duo with Miti Miti"
 * "El Blu del Ping Pong"
 * "La Hora de Volve"
 * "Jardinera"
 * "Equeibol"
 * "El Juidero"
 * "Oigo Voces"
 * "Flores de Fuego"
 * "Da Pa Lo Do"
 * "Como un ladrón en la noche"
 * "Bajito a selva*"
 * "Maldito Feisbu"
 * "El Castigador"