Carla Guelfenbein Interviewed by Ian Goldin

Renowned Chilean novelist and winner of the prestigious Alfaguara Prize for novels in Spanish Carla Guelfenbein talks about her work and provides stimulating insight into what it takes to write a novel.

Guelfenbein is author of several novels that have been translated into 14 languages including In the Distance with You  and One in Me I Never Loved. She was born in Chile of Russian-Jewish origin, was exiled with her parents to the UK in 1976 where she studied at the University of Essex and St Martin’s School of Art, and then returned to Chile.

Guelfenbein was art director and fashion editor at Elle magazine in Chile and didn’t turn to writing until she was around 40. Since then, she has published novels that focus on struggles women have had in society. Her latest, One in Me I never Loved, is a blend of reality and fiction that explores the lives of a series of women, young and old, and the need to be both seen and to disappear.

Here she talks to Professor Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at the University of Oxford and founding director of the Oxford Martin School.

The event is part of the festival’s programme of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture.