Luis López Nieves (born January 17, 1950) is Puerto Rican author. He has collaborated with several newspapers and written two TV miniseries. He has written the scripts for PSA advertisements. He has been visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and was a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

Fellow.

Education and career

López Nieves created and is the director of the first Master's Program in Creative Writing of Latin America, at the

Universidad del Sagrado Corazón Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (English: University of the Sacred Heart), abbreviated "USC" and often called simply Sagrado, is a private Catholic university in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is one of the oldest and largest educational in ...

, in San Juan. López Nieves studied at the

University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras; UPR-RP, or informally La IUPI) is a public land-grant research university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the largest campus in the Uni ...

and was in a course taught by

René Marqués René Marqués (October 4, 1919 – March 22, 1979) was a Puerto Rican short story writer and playwright. Early years Marqués was born, raised and educated in the city of Arecibo. He developed an interest in writing at a young age and was p ...

, which he says changed his life, knowing then he wanted to write-not study law, as he had originally planned. López Nieves has a BA in General Studies from the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...

; also an MA in Hispanic Literature and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, both from

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

. During two year he wrote his column Byzantine Letters (Cartas Bizantinas) in the largest newspaper of Puerto Rico, ''

El Nuevo Día ''El Nuevo Día'' (English: ''The New Day'') is the newspaper with the largest circulation in Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1909 in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and today it is a subsidiary of GFR Media. Its headquarters are in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. H ...

''.

Ciudad Seva

On December 12, 1995, he founded Ciudad Seva), a website that has received more than 63 million visitors. The site was launched out of curiosity, as a way for López Nieves to keep in touch with his family and friends. He chose "'' Seva''", the title of his first book, as the name of the site. The website features almost all publicly known information about the author and his writings. Founded in April 2001, th
Ciudad Seva Digital Library
is a major attraction of the site. Begun as a way for the author to post useful stories for his students and courses, it now houses more than 3000 classic

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

. In addition to its digital library function, the site houses numerous literary

Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least tempora ...

s, including one for the

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

of writings and the exchange of ideas for improving each other's work. In addition, visitors can subscribe to a weekly classic short story via

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

Retirement

In August 2019 he retired from his job as professor after 30 years at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, where he had mentored many writers.

Publications

His books ''The True Death of Juan Ponce de León'' (2000) and ''Voltaire's Heart'' (2005) have won the National Literature Prize. Additional books he has published include ''Seva'' and ''Writing for Rafa''. His short stories have been published in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

n and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

anthologies. In 2009 he published his latest novel
Galileo's Silence
(El silencio de Galileo), simultaneously in Spain and in Latin America.

Bibliography

Novels

* ''El corazón de Voltaire'', 2005, Grupo Editorial Norma, Colombia. (''Voltaire's Heart''.) * ''El corazón de Voltaire'', 2007, Belacqva, Spain. (''Voltaire's Heart''.) * ''El silencio de Galileo'', La Otra Orilla (Grupo Editorial Norma), Bogotá, Colombia, junio 2009, pp. 338. (''Galileo's Silence'') * ''El silencio de Galileo'', Mosaico (Grupo Editorial Norma), Barcelona, España, julio 2009, pp. 333. (''Galileo's Silence'')

Short stories

* ''Seva'' (one of Puerto Rico's most celebrated short stories), 1984, Grupo Editorial Norma, Colombia. * ''Escribir para Rafa'', 1987, Grupo Editorial Norma, Colombia. (''Writing for Rafa''.) * ''La verdadera muerte de Juan Ponce de León'', 2000, Grupo Editorial Norma, Colombia. (''The True Death of Juan Ponce de León''.)

Short story anthologies

* ''El cuento hispanoamericano'' (Seymour Menton, Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, Seventh Edition, 2003). * ''El cuento hispanoamericano en el siglo XX'' (Fernando Burgos, Editorial Castalia, Madrid, 1997). * ''El muro y la intemperie: El nuevo cuento latinoamericano'' (Julio Ortega, Ediciones del Norte, New Hampshire, USA, 1989). * ''Cuentos para ahuyentar el turismo'' (Vitalina Alfonso y Emilio Jorge Rodríguez, Editorial Arte y Literatura, La Habana, Cuba, 1991). * ''Writing Between the Lines'' (Bowen & Weigel, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA, USA, 1997). * ''Die Horen'' (Wilfried Böhringer, Germany, Year 42, 3rd Quarter, Edition 187, 1997). * ''Los nuevos caníbales: Antología de la más reciente cuentística del caribe hispano'' (Bobes, Valdez y Gómez Beras, Editorial Isla Negra -joint publishing with Ediciones Unión/Cuba and Editorial Búho/Dominican Republic-, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2000).

References

External links

Ciudad Seva
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lopez Nieves, Luis Puerto Rican writers Living people 1950 births Ford Foundation fellowships University of Puerto Rico alumni Stony Brook University alumni Universidad del Sagrado Corazón alumni