Barbara Mujica, Author-Episode #409

Barbara Mujica is a multi-award-winning, bestselling novelist, and a professor emerita at Georgetown University. She’s also a short-story writer, essayist, and critic. She’s been published in The New York Times, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post. Barbara's stories have appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals.  She’s a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction. And her work has been optioned for the movies and adapted for the stage. Her latest novel, Miss del Río, which is a historical fiction about the great Mexican-American actress, Dolores Del Rio, has been optioned for a film by John Black Productions. It was a Target Book Club pick, an Apple Audio "Must Listen," a Library Journal "Best Book of the Year" selection, and The Washington Post named it "One of the five best recent historical novels." I’ve read Miss Del Rio, and can tell you it’s riveting storytelling about a real-life major movie star as she lives and works in an elite world few ever get to experience. Miss Del Rio is a fascinating glimpse into many of the true characters of Hollywood’s silent era as it transitioned to talkies and far beyond.Among Barbara’s published books are Frida, a best seller is based on the tumultuous relationship between the artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Sister Teresa, I Am Venus, The Deaths of Don Bernardo, and three short story collections: Imagining Iraq, Sanchez Across the Street, and Far from My Mother's Home. As a scholar, Barbara specializes in Early Modern Spanish literature and contemporary Latin American Culture. Barbara’s also been active in veterans' issues at Georgetown since 2010. Her book Collateral Damage: Women Write about War was inspired by a symposium she organized at Georgetown on women and war. And you may have seen or heard Barbara being interviewed on CBS-TV News, NPR, NBC Radio, The PBS TV News Hour, and CNN-LatinoIn case you’re wondering about the intermittent snoring throughout much of the show, it is Barbara’s dog, Frankie, who was taking a long snooze as we were recording.