Ana Menendez

        Ana Menendez was born in 1970 in Los Angeles to Cuban exiles. Her parents planned to move back to Cuba at any time, so they prepared Ana for this. She spoke only Spanish until she was enrolled in kindergarten. They didn't ever move back to Cuba, but they did move to Florida, where Ana earned her Bachelor of Arts from Florida International University. She got her Master of Fine Arts at New York University. Ana was a journalist from 1991 until 1997. She then accepted a Fulbright Grant to teach at the American University in Cairo. Ana entered the Creative Writing program at New York University in 1997, where she was a New York Times Fellow. She now lives in Maastricht and Miami. In an interview with Coastline Magazine, she said:

"The difference between writing fiction and writing journalism is a little like the difference between working with oils and working with fast-drying acrylics. With fiction, you have a long time before the work 'sets'; you can re-contour, re-blend, touch-up, even wipe clean and start again. With journalism, you have about eight hours to get the picture done and then another four or five of obsessing, 'did I spell that name right, did I screw up that date, is the fact correct?' With journalism, there's no going back. There are no 'revisions' only 'corrections'. It's very unforgiving. There's something to love and loathe in both 'media'."

        Ana has written four books. Her first book, In Cuba I was a German Shepherd, was awarded a Pushcart Prize and was nominated for a New York Times notable book. This was a book of short stories. It was published in 2001. Her first novel, Loving Che, was published in 2003. In June of 2009, she published another novel, The Last War. Her most recent book, Adios, Happy Homeland!, was published in 2011 and is a book of linked, formally experimental short stories.
        As a journalist, Ana Menendez has done plenty of work in Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India. She has written for the Miami Herald, where she covered the small neighborhood of Little Havana. The Last War is about the war in Iraq and is set in Istanbul. This displays her as a rather adventurous author, as Istanbul is one thousand miles from Baghdad. This was a bold choice that could easily have destroyed the book, but she was able to precariously pull it off. Ana Menendez is a fantastic author, who's legacy is not easily overstated.