Juan López Bauzá -- Once Upon A Colony: A Puerto Rican Story

Juan López Bauzá was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he received his primary and secondary education. He received a Bachellor’s Degree in Political Science from Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, in 1988, and was later enrolled in the Comparative Literature Master’s Program at the University of Puerto Rico.

In 1988 he also published his first short stories in literary magazines and newspapers from Venezuela and Colombia, including El Espectador, one of Colombia’s main newspapers. Between 1990 and 1995, He started to publish short stories in local Puerto Rican magazines and newspapers, such as Claridad, Cupey and Postdata. Back in Ponce, while working on his first novel, together with a group of literary friends, was co-founder of the local literary magazine A propósito.

His first book of short stories, La sustituta y otros cuentos (The Substitute and other stories), was published by the University of Puerto Rico Press in 1997, and was awarded the Puerto Rico Pen Club Award for he best book of short fiction published in Puerto Rico during that year. Some of its stories have been included in Puerto Rican short stories’ anthologies such as Mal(h)ab(l)ar (Speaking bad), Nuevos Caníbales (The New Cannibals), and En el ojo del huracán (In the Eye of the Storm), as well as in local high school texts. One of them was also included in Mercedes López Baralt’s celebrated Anthology of 20th Century Puerto Rican Literature. Since then, he has been active in the local press.

Following a long writing period, in 2013 he published his first novel, Barataria (LibrosAC) which was awarded by the Festival de la Palabra with Puerto Rico’s foremost international literary award: Las Americas Award. It was also awarded that same year with the Puerto Rico Pen Club Award for best novel published in the country during that year. In 2014, and for the first time ever, the Puerto Rican Academy of Spanish Language nominated Barataria for the Spanish Royal Academy of Language Gran Award, offered every two years for novels nominated by the Academies of each Spanish speaking country.

Writen before Barataria, his second novel, El Mar de Azov (The Sea of Azov) (LibrosAC), was published in 2015. In 2018, his new novel El Resplandor de Luzbella (Luzbella’s Glow), was published by worldwide editing house Planeta Editorial. On December of this same year Planeta will also be reediting Barataria.

Presented by 

Office of Undergraduate Scholarship ● FGCU Storytelling Initiative

Dept of Language & Literature ● Dept of Communication & Philosophy