Mempo Giardinelli

Mempo Giardinelli was born in Resistencia, capital of the Chaco province in Argentina, on August 2, 1947. He is an award-winning author of novels, short stories, essays, anthologies, and children’s fiction, and a journalist whose columns appear regularly in newspapers and magazines in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Chile, and other countries. During the military dictatorship, he lived in exile in Mexico City (1976-1984), where his first works of fiction were published. Upon his return to Argentina in 1984, he founded the literary magazine Puro Cuento (1986-1992), and in 1996 La Fundación Mempo Giardinelli, a not-for profit organization that promotes reading, education, and social justice in Argentina, and has won numerous national and international awards in recognition of its humanitarian work.
During his long literary career, Giardinelli has garnered many prestigious awards for his works of fiction and essays, among them the 1993 Premio Rómulo Gallegos, which is Latin America’s most prestigious literary award, the Grandes Viajeros Award (Spain, 2000), the Grinzane-Montagna (2007), the Acerbi Special Award (Italy, 2009), the Andrés Sabella Award (Chile, 2013), the Premio Manuel Rojas (Chile, 2021), and the Premio Letterario Caccuri (Italy, 2024). The author has taught Argentine and Latin American literature at various universities in Argentina, Mexico, and the United States, including the Universidad Iberoamericana (México), the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina), and the University of Virginia as a frequent Visiting Professor. He also served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in Wellesley College in Boston, Massachusetts, the University of Louisville in Kentucky, Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, and Florida State University. He has been honored as a Doctor Honoris Causa by the following universities: Université de Poitiers, France, Universidad del Norte in Paraguay, and, in Argentina by the Universidad Nacional de Formosa, Universidad Nacional de Misiones, and the Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. His works have been translated to twenty-six languages and have been the subject of numerous critical articles, dissertations, and books published in Argentina and other South American countries, the United States, and Europe.