Overview
Liliana Colanzi has published the short story books Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro (You Glow in the Dark, New Directions, 2024), Nuestro mundo muerto (Our Dead World, Dalkey Archive Press, 2017), and Vacaciones permanentes (2010).
You Glow in the Dark won the Ribera del Duero Prize for Short Story Collections—selected from more than one thousand manuscripts submitted from across the Spanish-speaking world—as well as Spain’s 2024 Narrativas a Escena (Narrative on Stage Award), which led to its theatrical adaptation. In 2015, she received the Aura Estrada Literary Award (Mexico), and in 2017 she was selected for Bogotá39 by the Hay Festival Cartagena as one of the best Latin American writers under forty. In 2025, the Danish Writers Association awarded her the Zinklar Award for Short Fiction in recognition of her body of work as a short story writer. Her books have been translated into eight languages. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta en Español, The Baffler, Letras Libres, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El País, and others.
Her research focuses on literatures of irreality in Latin American fiction—including science fiction, horror, and the fantastic—and their intersections with class, gender, and race, as well as with animal studies and posthumanist theory. She teaches courses in Amazonian and Brazilian studies, and in creative writing. She edited La desobediencia: antología de ensayo feminista (2019) and is co-editor of Regiones inquietantes: Literatura de horror en Latinoamérica (Hispanic Issues Online, Fall 2024, with Debra A. Castillo) and Latin American Speculative Fiction (Paradoxa, 2018, with Debra A. Castillo). She is the founder of the independent literary press Dum Dum Editora in Bolivia. Liliana Colanzi grew up in Bolivia and holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Cornell University.
Publications
Fiction books
Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro. Madrid: Páginas de Espuma, 2022.
Translations: English. You Glow in the Dark. Translated by Chris Andrews. New York: New Directions, 2024. London: Akoya Publishing, 2025
Swedish. Ni Lyser I Mörkret. Translated by Hanna Nordenhök. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 2025.
Italian. Al buio brillate. Translated by Olga Barbato. Rome: Granvia edizioni, 2024
Greek. ΛΑΜΠΕΤΕ ΣΤΟ ΣΚΟΤΑΔΙ. Translated by Angeliki Vasilakou. Athens: Doma Books, 2023
Portuguese. Vocês Brilham no Escuro. Translated by Bruno Mattos. São Paulo: Mundaréu editora, 2023
Nuestro mundo muerto (El Cuervo, Bolivia, 2016; Almadía, Mexico, 2016; Eterna Cadencia, Argentina, 2017; Laguna, Colombia, 2017; Santuario, Peru, 2017; Encino, Costa Rica, 2019).
Translations: Danish. Vores Døde Verden. Translated by Allan Lillelund Andersen and Mads Østergaard. Copenhagen: Forlaget Silkefyret, 2020.
Dutch. Onze dode wereld. Translated by Luc Deroy. Amsterdam: Karaat, 2019
French. Notre monde mort. Translated by Juliet Ponce. Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 2018
English. Our Dead World. Translated by Jessica Sequeira. Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 2017
Italian: Il nostro mondo morto. Translated by Olga Barbato. Rome: granvia, 2017
Vacaciones permanentes. La Paz: El Cuervo, 2010; Buenos Aires: Reina Negra, 2011; Zaragoza: Tropo, 2012.
Edited volumes
Regiones inquietantes: Literatura de horror en Latinoamérica, coedited with Debra A. Castillo. Hispanic Issues, Fall 2024 (forthcoming).
La desobediencia. Antología de ensayo feminista. Santa Cruz: Dum Dum editora, 2019.
Latin American Speculative Fiction, Paradoxa, vol. 31. Coed. with Debra A. Castillo. 2018.
Edited book
La desobediencia. Antología de ensayo feminista. Santa Cruz: Dum Dum editora, 2019.
Selected Articles and Book Chapters
with Castillo, Debra. “El horror siempre estuvo aquí: Un breve repaso al género en Latinoamérica.” Regiones inquietantes: literatura de horror en Latinoamérica, coedited with Debra A. Castillo. Hispanic Issues, Spring 2025, pp. 1-14.
“Aparapitas del futuro: la ciencia ficción andina de Miguel Esquirol.” Ciencia ficción neoindigenista y afrofuturista en Latinoamérica: voces, identidades y transculturación, edited by Teresa López Pellisa. Kamchatka, revista de análisis cultural, December 2023, pp. 11-26.
“Cyborgs in the Margins: Indigeneity in El cementerio de elefantes, by Miguel Esquirol.” Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction, edited by Emily A. Maguire and Antonio Córdoba. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2022, pp. 167-183.
“Speculative Fiction.” Latin American Literature in Transition: Volume V (1980-2017), edited by Mónica Szurmuk and Debra A. Castillo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp. 79-92.
“Festín del horror: la comida siniestra en ‘Alta cocina’, de Amparo Dávila.” La obra fantástica de Amparo Dávila, edited by Teresa López Pellisa and David Rosas. Brumal, Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fantástico/ Research Journal on the Fantastic, Vol. IX, n.o 1 (primavera/spring 2021), pp. 21-31.
“Cuerpos que desaparecen: mercado, tecnología y animalidad en Los cuerpos del verano, de Martín Felipe Castagnet.” Revista Iberoamericana, Vol. LXXXVI, Núm. 270, January-March 2020, pp. 143-158.
In the news
- Colanzi wins Zinklar Award for short fiction
- Writing against productivity in Latin American fiction
- Outstanding A&S teachers, advisors honored with 2024 awards
- Professor’s book wins major literary prize
- Panelists explore ‘Science of the Very, Very Small’
- Science of the very, very small featured in next Arts Unplugged
Courses - Fall 2025
- PORT 4775 : Tales of the Amazon
- SPAN 3170 : Creative Writing Workshop (in Spanish)
- SPAN 4190 : Special Topics in Spanish Literature
- SPAN 4290 : Honors Work I
- SPAN 4775 : Tales of the Amazon
- SPAN 6390 : Special Topics in Spanish Literature