Nona Fernández

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Fernández and the second or maternal family name is Silanes.
Nona Fernández
At FILSA 2018
Born
Patricia Paola Fernández Silanes

(1971-06-23) 23 June 1971 (age 53)
Santiago, Chile
Occupation(s)Actress, writer
Notable workAv. 10 de Julio Huamachuco, La dimensión desconocida
SpouseMarcelo Leonart
Awards

Patricia Paola Fernández Silanes (born 23 June 1971), better known as Nona Fernández, is a Chilean actress, author, and screenwriter.[1] She is a recipient of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, and the Altazor prize (on many occasions).[2]

Biography

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An only child of a single mother, Nona Fernández grew up in a Matta Avenue neighborhood close to the market Persa Bíobío. There she had her first job, selling second-hand clothes.[3]

Even though her name is the same as her mother's, Patricia Paola, everyone calls her Nona, the name by which she also signs her works. When she was just starting to walk, she used to talk little, hardly saying anything. All she could say was 'no'. Turning this negative into her child's pet word earned her the peculiar nickname "Nonito" among her family. When she got older, the nickname became Nona.[3]

She attended Santa Cruz School in Santiago and later the Catholic University Theater School.

Later, as an actress, she founded the company Merri Melodys, participated in productions of many theatrical works, and won a competition of the Centro Chileno-Norteamericano de Cultura as the best actress.[4]

In 1995, she participated in a workshop given by Antonio Skármeta, the same year she won the Gabriela Mistral Literary Games. Her stories were first published in various anthologies of contests, and her first book of short stories, El Cielo, was published in 2000. Her award-winning novel Mapocho was published two years later.

Regarding the genesis of that first novel, she states:

I wrote my first novel in an apartment in Barcelona, staring at Chile from afar, filling pages with wild interpretations of its national history, while my belly grew with a child seeking space. At the same time I gave birth to my son I finished the book. The name of my son is Dante. The book was named Mapocho, like the river that crosses my city, the same one that has moved garbage and corpses since always.[5]

Fernández has been included by some critics in the so-called Literatura de los hijos.

Her husband, Dante's father, is the writer and theatre director Marcelo Leonart, whom she met when they were both studying at the Theatre School. Together they run the company La Fusa.

Nona describes herself with these words: "Actress for fun. Narrator for being a nuisance, trying not to forget what should not be forgotten. Scriptwriter for soap operas because of necessity. An uncomfortable Chilean, and sometimes rabid".[5]

At the Book Festival in Santiago's Plaza de Armas, 2013

Her work as a screenwriter for TV series is for Nona Fernández only a way to make a living. On TVN, she has become the scriptwriter for El laberinto de Alicia. Also, she contributes to the series Los archivos del cardenal, based on the cases defended by the Vicariate of Solidarity during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.[1] She also co-wrote Andrés Waissbluth [es]'s film 199 recetas para ser feliz (199 Tips to be Happy) and the documentary La ciudad de los fotógrafos (City of Photographers) by Sebastián Moreno.

She was selected in 2011 along with two other Chileans: Diego Muñoz Valenzuela and Francisco Díaz Klaassen [es] as one of the "25 literary treasures waiting to be discovered", writers "whose talent has been consolidated in their countries, but who are still not well known outside them", by the Guadalajara International Book Fair in celebration of its 25 years of existence.[5][6]

She made her debut as a playwright in 2012, with El taller, a play inspired by the literary salon that Mariana Callejas held in her home in Lo Curro while her husband, Michael Townley, directed the underground operations of a DINA headquarters.[7] This black comedy performed by Leonart and Fernández's company, La Fusa, premiered in April at the Santiago theater Lastarria 90 and re-shown in August at the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral.[8] It won the Premio Altazor 2013 in the Theater art category.[9] Her second piece, Liceo de niñas, premiered in 2015 (with this, the company led by Nona and Leonart is now called Pieza Oscura);[10] it is "a fantastic comedy about an overwhelmed science teacher who discovers in his school's laboratory three students who have been hidden since a 1985 protest occupation."[11]

Works

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Greetings from the actors at the end of the Liceo de niñas piece (Fernández is seated left), 9 December 2015

Novels

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  • 2002: Mapocho, Planeta

A novel that portrays, through different symbols and metaphors, Chile's biography and the role of the Official History as a speech of power on the structuring of an identity.

  • 2007: Av. 10 de Julio Huamachuco, Uqbar

Work that represents classic children's fears that most of the time cross the time barrier and continue tormenting until adulthood.

  • 2012: Fuenzalida, Mondadori, Santiago

A maze of fantastical stories that intertwine with one another and suggest that is impossible to close the eyes before memories, be they personal or collective.

Dreams of a generation turned into nightmares that until today torture them at night. Dreams of children that witnessed Pinochet's dictatorship.

  • 2015: Chilean Electric, Alquimia, Santiago

A novel to understand and explore family history, turning it into an illumination of the "fearsome darkness" that has reigned in the history of Chile with its missing, murdered, and hanged men. A novel inspired, at the same time, by wooden horses, a typewriter, and the corpse of a president who said, "more passion and more affection."

  • 2016: La dimensión desconocida, Penguin Random House, Santiago 2021 The Twilight Zone (English Translation) Graywolf Press

In the middle of the Chilean dictatorship, an anguished man arrives at the offices of an opposition magazine. He is an agent of the secret service. "I want to speak", he says, and a journalist turns on her voice recorder to listen to a testimony that opens the doors to a hitherto unknown dimension.

Memoir

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  • Fernández, Nona (2023). Voyager. Graywolf Press. ISBN 978-1-64445-217-2. Translated by Natasha Wimmer, [12][13][14][15]

Short stories

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  • 2000: El Cielo, Cuarto Propio. Santiago

Seven stories marked by love and redemption or redemption through love. Stories where rules do not exist, everything counts, and everyone counts. What is important is that no one is actually more important. Everyone has a place, a niche, a heaven to go to.

In anthologies

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  • 1994: Música ligera (Grijalbo)
  • 1996: Pasión por la música (Lom)
  • 1997: Cuentos extraviados (Alfaguara; with "Blanca")
  • 1998: Queso de cabeza y otros cuentos [es] (with "El Cielo")

Theatrical dramas

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  • El taller: released in April 2012; published in the book Bestiario, freakshow temporada 1973/1990, together with Grita (2004, by Marcelo Leonart) and Medusa (2010, by Ximena Carrera): Ceibo Ediciones, Santiago, 2013[16]
  • Liceo de niñas: released on 23 October 2015 by the company Pieza Oscura at the Theater of the Catholic University,[10] with direction by Marcelo Leonart and acting by the author, among others, who plays the role of a mute student.[11] Published by Ediciones Oxímoron in 2016.

Television series scripts

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Original stories

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Adaptations

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English translations

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Awards and recognitions

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Nelmes, Jill; Selbo, Jule, eds. (29 September 2015). "Chile". Women Screenwriters: An International Guide. Springer. p. 879. ISBN 9781137312372. Retrieved 27 January 2018 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Nelmes, Jill (29 September 2015). Chile. Springer. p. 879. ISBN 9781137312372.
  3. ^ a b Núñez, Natalia (2 May 2012). "Nona Fernández, la escritora multifacética" [Nona Fernández, the Multifaceted Writer]. El Mercurio Ya (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  4. ^ a b Sánchez, Alejandra (29 September 2008). "Nona Fernández: Finalmente Tom se come a Jerry" [Nona Fernández: Finally Tom Eats Jerry]. La Pollera. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  5. ^ a b c "Los 25 secretos mejor guardados de América Latina" [The 25 Best Kept Secrets in Latin America] (in Spanish). Guadalajara International Book Fair. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  6. ^ Sabogal, Winston Manrique (20 September 2011). "25 secretos literarios de Latinoamérica en la FIL" [25 Literary Secrets of Latin America at the FIL]. El País (in Spanish). Madrid. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  7. ^ Navarrete, Pilar (3 May 2012). "El taller una obra inspirada en Mariana Callejas" [El Taller a Play Inspired by Mariana Callejas]. Paula (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  8. ^ "GAM repone obra sobre el taller de literatura de la Dina" [GAM Restages Play About the DINA Literary Workshop]. La Tercera (in Spanish). 6 August 2012. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  9. ^ a b "El Taller" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  10. ^ a b "Hoy se estrena 'Liceo de Niñas' de Nona Fernández en Teatro UC" [Today 'Liceo de Niñas' by Nona Fernández Premieres at the UC Theater] (in Spanish). Radio Bío-Bío. 23 October 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  11. ^ a b Guerrero, Pedro Pablo (15 November 2015). "Nona Fernández regresa al teatro y a la novela" [Nona Fernández Returns to the Stage and the Novel]. El Mercurio (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  12. ^ "Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. 8 March 2023. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  13. ^ Inman, Amanda Paige (22 June 2023). "Nona Fernandez and the Black Hole of Collective Memory". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  14. ^ Graham, Morgan (22 February 2023). "The Stakes of Remembering in "Voyager"". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  15. ^ Weeks, Josh (17 February 2023). "Voyager — the memory of Pinochet's victims, written in the stars". Financial Times. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  16. ^ Etcheverría, Estefanía (25 May 2013). "Bestiario, una historia teatral del régimen en el teatro y el papel" [Bestiario, a Theatrical History of the Regime On Stage and On Paper]. La Tercera (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  17. ^ "Aquelarre" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 31 August 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  18. ^ a b c "La escritora chilena Nona Fernández obtiene en México el Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz" [The Chilean Writer Nona Fernández Gets the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize in Mexico]. El Mostrador (in Spanish). 30 October 2017.
  19. ^ "16" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  20. ^ "Los Treinta" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  21. ^ "Alguien te mira" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 13 April 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  22. ^ "Conde Vrolok" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 2 December 2010. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  23. ^ "¿Dónde está Elisa?" (in Spanish). Altazor Award. Archived from the original on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  24. ^ "Serie 'Los Archivos del Cardenal' arrasó en Premios Altazor 2012" [Series 'Los Archivos del Cardenal' Sweeps the 2012 Altazor Awards]. La Nación (in Spanish). 8 May 2012. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  25. ^ "Consejo de la Cultura da a conocer los ganadores de los Premios Literarios 2016" [Council of Culture Recognizes the Winners of the 2016 Literary Awards] (in Spanish). National Council of Culture and the Arts. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  26. ^ "Translated Literature - 70th National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. 17 September 2019. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
  27. ^ "The Twilight Zone | Graywolf Press". Retrieved 21 March 2024.
  28. ^ "The Twilight Zone | Graywolf Press". Retrieved 21 March 2024.
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