Gonzalo Lira

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Gonzalo Lira (born February 29, 1968, in Burbank, California) is an American novelist and filmmaker.

The child of Chilean's temporarily in the USA, Gonzalo Lira Valdés and Maria Isabel Lopez Hess, Lira grew up in the San Fernando Valley, New York, and Miami, as well as Guayaquil, Ecuador, before completing high school at St. George’s College in Santiago, Chile, in 1985. After working as an English teacher for several years and travelling throughout South America, he attended Dartmouth College in 1991, graduating with honors in 1995, with a degree in history and philosophy.

On graduation, he moved to Los Angeles, where he unsuccessfully pursued a career in television writing before turning to fiction. His first novel, a commercial thriller, Counterparts, was published in 1997. His first Spanish language novel, a highly experimental coming-of-age story, Tomáh Errázurih, was published in 1998.

After moving to lower Manhattan in 1998, Lira wrote, produced and directed a comic short film, So Kinky, before writing his next book, Acrobat (2002). The novel was subsequently purchased by Miramax, to be turned into a motion picture. In 2002, Lira moved to Chile, to begin writing and producing Spanish language feature films. In 2006, Lira completed the film Catalina’s Kidnapping, a Spanish-language thriller.

[edit] Novels

• Counterparts (G.P. Putnam Sons, New York, NY: 1998. ISBN 978-0-399-14312-0.)
• Tomáh Errázurih (Grijalbo Mondadori, Santiago, Chile: 1997. ISBN 978-956-258-057-1.)
• Acrobat (St. Martin's Press, New York, NY: 2002. ISBN 978-0-312-28694-1.)