User:Mamajeanette/carlos franz

Carlos Franz Chilean writer. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, 1959. Son of a diplomat, Carlos Franz Núñez and a theater actress, Miriam Thorud Oliva.

Studies

Studied law at the University of Chile (Santiago), graduating with first honors in 1981. From 1980 to 1984, he was fellow member of the literary workshop of José Donoso, in Santiago de Chile. In 1997 he founded and directed the National Library Literary Workshop in Santiago, which was an important seeding ground for a new generation of Chilean writers. In the year 2000, he won the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) scholarship, and was invited as Writer in Residence in Berlin, by the DAAD-Berliner Künstler Programm. In 2001 he moved to the United Kingdom, invited as Visiting Fellow of the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge. The next year he became Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Spanish and Spanish American Studies Department, King’s College, University of London. In 2004 he moved to Madrid. In 2006 Franz was appointed Cultural Attaché of Chile in Spain, by President Michelle Bachelet. He renounced in 2010. Currently he lives in Madrid.

Works

Franz’ first novel, “Santiago Cero” (Alfaguara, 2008), won the CICLA Prize for Latin American Novels, in 1988. It is generally considered as the first example of the literary movement called Nueva Narrativa Chilena, that started after the end of the Pinochet's regime in Chile. His second novel, “El lugar donde estuvo el Paraíso” (Alfaguara, 2007), was First Runner Up in the 1996 Planeta Latin American Prize, and made into a film in Spain, in 2001. His third novel, “El desierto”, was awarded the International Prize La Nación-Sudamericana 2005, in Buenos Aires. Franz’s fourth novel, “Almuerzo de vampiros” (Alfaguara, 2007), won the Consejo Nacional del Libro award in 2007, in Chile. Some of the above works have been translated into ten languages, so far. El desierto –in English, “The absent sea”— was published by McPherson & Co, New York, in 2011 (translated by Leland Chambers). Franz also authored a volume of short stories, “La Prisionera” (Alfaguara 2009), and a literary essay, “La muralla enterrada” (Planeta, 2001), for which he was awarded the Premio Municipal de Ensayo, Santiago, Chile, 2002. Several of his short stories have been published in Chilean, Latin American and international anthologies, like “A whistler in the night world” (Plume, New York, 2002). He is a regular contributor to several Spanish and Latin American newspapers and magazines, like El País (Spain), Letras Libres (México) or La Nación (Argentina).