Guillermoprieto, Alma 1949-

PERSONAL: Born May 27, 1949, in Mexico City, Mexico.

ADDRESSES: Home—Mexico City, Mexico. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Alfred A. Knopf, 299 Park Ave., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10171.

CAREER: Writer and journalist. Professional dancer, 1962–73; dance instructor, Cuba, 1970; former reporter in Central America for the Guardian and the Washington Post; Newsweek, former South American bureau chief; New York Review of Books, former writer; New Yorker, 1989–, began as contributing writer, became staff correspondent.

AWARDS, HONORS: Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship, 1985; Maria Moors Cabot Prize, Columbia University, 1990; National Book Critics Circle Award nomination, 1990, for Samba; Latin American Studies Association Award, 1992; National Magazine Award nomination, 1994, for an article on the Shining Path in Peru; Samuel Chavkin Prize (first recipient), 1994, for integrity in Latin American journalism; MacArthur Foundation fellowship, 1995; George Polk Award for foreign reporting, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Samba, Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

The Heart that Bleeds: Latin America Now (essays), Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

Los años en que no fuimos felices: Crónicas de la transición mexicana, Plaza & Janés (Mexico City, Mexico), 1999.

Las guerras en Colombia: Tres ensayos, Aguilar (Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia), 2000.

Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America (essays), Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including the New Yorker and the New York Times Book Review.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Another book of essays.

SIDELIGHTS: In more than a decade of reporting on Latin America, Alma Guillermoprieto has earned a reputation as a well-respected observer of that part of the world. Guillermoprieto's first book, Samba, received a nomination for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1990. In Samba, Guillermoprieto chronicles her experiences in Rio de Janeiro in 1988 during the preparation for that country's annual celebration, Carnaval. The months-long preparation included float and costume making and attending a local Samba school. She also discusses the daily lives and dangers of the poor people with whom she lived. In a review of the book for Whole Earth Review, Richard Nilsen noted: "Rio's Carnival and the samba that drives it come to life in a book that includes the smells of poverty and the muddy bare feet of a Brazilian favela [shanty town]." A writer for the New Yorker observed: "She is eloquent and persuasive in bringing it all to life."

The Heart that Bleeds: Latin America Now is a collection of articles on Latin American subjects that Guillermoprieto wrote for the New Yorker between 1989 and 1993. Booklist contributor Brad Hooper described the book's theme as why Latin American countries "find the clothes of late-twentieth-century modernity ill-fitting and what the discomfort portends for their particular futures." The collection was described in a review by Foreign Affair's Kenneth Maxwell as a starting point "for those who want a better feel for the vicissitudes, follies and heroic everyday struggle for survival in Latin America today."

Guillermoprieto's Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America is a second collection of essays on Latin America, focusing this time on Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico. Library Journal reviewer Mark L. Grover found the essays to be "perceptive and insightful observations of Latin American politics and society that help illuminate this important part of the world." "Tracing the histories of political parties and alliances," observed a contributor to Kirkus Reviews, "Guillermoprieto provides insight into movements that usually seem opaque." Reviewing the book for the New York Times, Sarah Kerr pointed out that at times Guillermoprieto "gets at the truth the way a psychological novelist might. Indeed, she may be at her most authoritative when studying the emotional pressure points of Latin American politics." Kerr further noted that "Guillermoprieto has set the standard for elegant writing in English on Latin America," and commended the author, saying: "When Guillermoprieto speaks her mind … she speaks with power."

In Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution, Guillermoprieto recounts her move to Cuba in 1970 to become a dance instructor of Cuban high school students for six months. The author describes her time in the state-run, high school conservatory, her flirtation with the "Revolution," and her bout with depression that nearly led to suicide. Writing in the Nation, Achy Obejas noted that the "bittersweet memoir … is about falling in love with this mythic place or, more precisely, trying to. It is also about the tense relationship between realism and idealism, a sympathetic yet ultimately unsparing account of a personal odyssey that ends not triumphantly but nonetheless extraordinarily." Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, commented that the author presents a "riveting portrait of herself as a young artist." A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that the book was "written with dignity and without rhetoric or undue emotion: when this author flays her feelings, it's because she is utterly alive and in protest."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Guillermoprieto, Alma, Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 2004.

PERIODICALS

American Prospect, June 4, 2001, Louis Dubose, review of Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America, p. 43.

Booklist, February 15, 1994, Brad Hooper, review of The Heart that Bleeds: Latin America Now, p. 1058; March 1, 2002, Donna Seaman, review of Looking for History, p. 1085; January 1, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 787.

Dance, June, 2004, Wendy Perron, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 52.

Economist, May 14, 1994, review of The Heart that Bleeds, p. 95.

Financial Times, August 21, 2004, "Politics as a Rich Source of Theatre: Alma Guillermoprieto and Latin America," p. 15.

Foreign Affairs, July-August, 1994, Kenneth Maxwell, review of The Heart that Bleeds, p. 174.

Harper's, February, 2004, John Leonard, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 73.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2001, review of Looking for History, p. 162; December 1, 2003, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 1391; December 15, 2004, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. S5.

Library Journal, March 15, 2001, Mark L. Grover, review of Looking for History, p. 96; January, 2002, review of Looking for History, p. 49.

Nation, June 16, 1997, John Leonard, "Of Human Bondage," pp. 23-29; March 15, 2004, Achy Obejas, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 28.

New Yorker, May 28, 1990, review of Samba, pp. 110-111.

New York Review of Books, October 18, 2001, Paul Berman, review of Looking for History, pp. 14-17.

New York Times, October 25, 1990, "Five Journalists to Receive Cabot Awards at Columbia," p. A4; July 22, 2001, Sarah Kerr, "Eyes Instead of Theories," review of Looking for History.

Nieman Reports, fall, 2001, Dianne Solis, review of Looking for History, p. 106.

O, the Oprah Magazine, February, 2004, Francine Prose, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 130.

Publishers Weekly, January 17, 1994, review of The Heart that Bleeds, p. 394; March 12, 2001, review of Looking for History, p. 74; December 8, 2003, review of Dancing with Cuba, p. 54.

Times Literary Supplement, July 13, 1990, John Ryle, "The Poor People's Luxury," p. 745.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), September 15, 1991, review of Samba, p. 24.

Whole Earth Review, winter, 1992, Richard Nilsen, "How to Samba," p. 31.

ONLINE

Bomb, http://www.bombsite.com/ (February 23, 2006), Esther Allen, "Alma Guillermoprieto," interview with author.