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I was born by the Mediterranean Sea in a town called Alicante, an ideal vacation place in Spain both for national and international tourists, so during my childhood I was always in contact with people coming and going—family and friends from all over the world.

That, and the fact that my father was a professor of English and wanted his children to become proficient in as many languages as possible, provided me with great desire to travel and be in touch with other cultures from very early on. My favorite books as a child were always books of adventure, from the medieval chivalric romances and the pirates of Sandocán to Treasure Island, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But perhaps my favorite of all times is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.


My curiosity for all things far and different was nurtured by my father’s vast collection of National Geographic magazines that covered one side of our hallway from floor to ceiling, with copies that went back as far as 1924. Each picture was a promise of a new adventure, and I started writing about them in a huge accounting book my brother and I shared: on his end, the names of soccer players and winning teams; on mine, the products of my fertile imagination. My first published story was about a snowman. I was eleven, and I had never seen snow.

At age 16, after a hard time convincing my mother and many competitive examinations, I won a scholarship as an exchange student to Trenton, Michigan. Finally, that winter, I saw snow—almost daily! I have the impression that I have been traveling ever since.

In my twenties I crossed Europe and in Greece I fell in love with mythology. Years later, I wrote down many legends of the Hispanic world.

Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey were countries that fascinated me and inspired my research into the Arabic contributions to the history of Spain and Latin America.


Whether in Asia or Micronesia, Africa or the Middle East, I have always found reason to admire other cultures and reflect on them. Perhaps that is why I write about Hispanic art, artists, theatre, poetry and folklore: In the process of looking at other cultures, I discovered the beauty and richness of my own.

I was born by the Mediterranean Sea in a town called Alicante, an ideal vacation place in Spain both for national and international tourists, so during my childhood I was always in contact with people coming and going—family and friends from all over the world. That, and the fact that my father was a professor of English and wanted his children to become proficient in as many languages as pos... More