Emma Sepúlveda Pulvirenti

A native of Argentina, Chile is Emma Sepúlveda Pulvirenti's adopted home, and she is an American through the trials and tribulations of life.

She studied history at the University of Chile and graduated in the United States, where she lived for more than four decades. She earned her doctorate from the University of California, Davis. She has received numerous awards for her literary work and her work on Latino rights in the United States. In 1994, she was the first Latina to run for the Nevada Senate. For seventeen years, her commentary on political, economic and social issues was part of the permanent Sunday supplement of the Nevada Press. She has published more than thirty-five books on creative writing and literary criticism, as well as books on teaching and research on the Spanish language. Three of her most recent books (Gringosincracias, Setenta días de noche and Historia de un invisible) have won the Latino Book Award.

Her awards include Thorton for Peace; GEMS Woman of the Year in Literature; Carolyn Kizer in Poetry; Silver Pen in Literature; and the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, which is given to the greatest writers, with Emma being the first Latina to receive this award. In 2009, the US government appointed her to the committee to establish the first Latino Museum in Washington DC. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed her to the Fulbright International Committee in the US, making her the first Latina to be appointed to this prestigious commission.

Emma is an Endowed Professor Emerita at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she founded the Center for Latino Studies and has received several awards in her more than 35 years at the institution. She currently writes from Valencia, Spain.