Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (born October 29, 1970) is a Puerto Rican novelist, short story writer and essayist.[1]
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Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro was born in Guaynabo. She began writing at an early age in school newsletters and newspapers and won drawing and essay competitions at the Colegio San Vicente Ferrer in Cataño. In 1989 she won the intra-university competition of the Bayamón Central University with the story "Vimbi Botella." In 1990 she directed a play entitled ¿A dónde va el amor? (Where does love go?) based on her own script, which was staged in Barrio Amelia, a poor neighborhood in Guaynabo where the author was raised. In 2004, she published her first book of stories Origami de letras (Letter origami) and the following year published her first novel Los documentados (The documented) that depicts the migration conditions in the Caribbean, specifically from Hispaniola to Puerto Rico. This novel won the PEN Club Prize for 2006. In 2007 she published a new book of short stories, Ojos de Luna (Moon eyes) in which she explores marginality from various points of view including eviction, solidarity, and spiritual barriers. This book was selected by El Nuevo Día as one of the best in 2007. That same year she was chosen as one of the most important Latin American writers under 39 years of age as part of Bogotá39 convened by UNESCO, the Hay Festival and the Ministry of Culture in Bogotá. She was the only representative from Puerto Rico.
She teaches creative writing workshops in San Juan. She has been the recipient of several literary awards, national and internationally: Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Spain and Puerto Rico. Her short story collection Ojos de Luna was awarded the National Literature Prize, Premio Nacional del Instituto de Literatura de Puerto Rico 2008. She regularly publishes articles and reviews in newspapers such as El Nuevo Día, El Vocero, Claridad and La Expresión. She belongs to the core team running the literary website CiudadSeva.com.
Arroyo Pizarro is also a LGBT activist and frequently writes about LGBT issues in her work. She often uses her blog Boreales to discuss Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and other themes.