Loida Maritza Pérez (born 1963) is a

Dominican American Dominican Americans (, ) are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Dominican Republic. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United States of Dominican descent or to someone who has migrated to the United States from the Dominican R ...

author. She is most known for her 1999 novel ''Geographies of Home''.

Biography

Loida Maritza Pérez was born in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

in 1963.

Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( ; ; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (; "the boss"), was a Dominican military officer and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until Rafael Trujillo#Assassination, ...

's reign over the island had ended two years prior and the nation's political status was uncertain, leading many families to

emigrate Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

. Loida Maritza Pérez's family left for the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

when she was three years old, where they settled in

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. She grew up in the Bronx and the location features heavily in her writings.

Career

Loida Maritza Pérez began her writing career as an undergraduate at Cornell. During an autobiographical class then taught by Henry Louise Gates, she produced the short story that became her novel ''Geographies of Home'' (1999). She has also taught writing workshops and contributed to the publications ''Bomb'', ''Latina'', and ''Callaloo''. Her writing has drawn comparisons to other

writers of her generation such as

Angie Cruz Angie Cruz (born February 24, 1972) is an American novelist and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches in the Master of Fine Arts, M.F.A. program. Early life and education Cruz was born on February 24, 1972, in ...

Nelly Rosario Nelly Rosario (born 1972) is a Dominican American, Dominican-American novelist and creative writing instructor in the Latina/o Studies Program at Williams College. She was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the Williamsburg section of Br ...

, and

Junot Díaz Junot Díaz ( ; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at '' Boston Review''. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience ...

, a group that is often seen as following in the footsteps of writer

Julia Álvarez Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels ''How the García Girls Lost Their Accents'' (1991), ''In the Time of the Butterflies'' (1994), and ''Yo!' ...

. Loida Maritza Pérez's works deal with the themes of intergenerational trauma,

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

, displacement, and more. She has received awards for her work from the

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

, Pauline and Henry Louis Gates fellowship, ''El Diario'', and

Ucross Foundation The Ucross Foundation, located in Ucross, Wyoming, is a nonprofit organization that operates a retreat for visual artists, writers, composers, and choreographers working in all creative disciplines. History Founded in 1981 by Raymond Plank, U ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez, Loida Maritza 21st-century American novelists Dominican Republic novelists Dominican Republic women novelists American writers of Dominican Republic descent Dominican Republic women writers Living people 1963 births Hispanic and Latino American novelists American women novelists 21st-century American women writers