| Alicia Gaspar de Alba (Librettist, Juana) is a native of the El Paso/Juárez border, Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a Chicana writer/scholar/activist who uses prose, poetry, and theory for social change. With a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico (1994), Alicia is a Professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Gender Studies at UCLA, her academic home since 1994, when she was hired as a founding faculty member of the Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies. She served as chair of Chicana/o Studies from 2007–2010 and Chaired the LGBTQ Studies Program from 2013-2019. Alicia has published 12 books, among them, the award winning novels, Sor Juana’s Second Dream (University of New Mexico Press, 1999), which was named Best Historical Fiction by the Latino Literary Hall of Fame in 2000, and Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders (Arte Público Press, 2005), which received both the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery in 2005 and the Latino Book Award for Best English-language Mystery in 2005. Her latest book of fiction is The Curse of the Gypsy: Ten Stories And a Novella (Arte Público Press, 2018). Her most recent academic book, [Un]framing the “Bad Woman”: Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui and Other Rebels with a Cause, (University of Texas Press 2014), is the winner of the 2015 Book Award by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education. Alicia lives in Los Angeles with her wife, the visual artist, Alma Lopez, and their toddler daughter. Her books are available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. For more about her work, or to order First Editions of her out-of-print titles, see her website: www.aliciagaspardealba.net. In November 2019, Opera UCLA premiered the opera, Juana, composed by Carla Lucero, with the libretto drawn from Sor Juana’s Second Dream, for which Alicia served as co-librettist. |
