Mayra Santos-Febres was born in Puerto Rico. In 1991 she received her doctorate in literature from Cornell University, where she has since taught as a visiting professor. She has also been a guest lecturer at Harvard, as well as at numerous other American and European universities, and is currently Associate professor of Literature at the University of Puerto Rico. She has published two books of poetry to wide acclaim, and her short stories have won many prizes, including the 1994 Letras de Oro Prize from the University of Miami, and the 1997 Juan Rulfo Prize, awarded by Radio Sarandi in Paris. In 1997 her two collections of short fiction were translated into English under the title Urban Oracles.