Las Mujeres - Benitez, Sandra
Sandra Benitez - Biography
Sandra Benitez is Puerto Rican and Midwestern by heritage. She spent her youth in Mexico, El Salvador and Missouri. Benitez is the author of NIGHT OF THE RADISHES, published by Hyperion in January, 2004, THE WEIGHT OF ALL THINGS, a Book Sense 76 pick and a Star Tribune Talking Volumes selection, BITTER GROUNDS, winner of an American Book Award and A PLACE WHERE THE SEA REMEMBERS, which won a Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the Minnesota Book Award. Her work has been translated into six languages. Benitez's novels are popular selections of book clubs, both local and around the country, and frequently are included on high school and university reading curriculums.
Benitez is also a creative writing teacher and speaker. She is a past Keller-Edelstein Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Minnesota, and was a recipient of the Knapp Chair in Humanities at the University of San Diego. Among other awards, Benitez has won a McKnight Award of Distinction in Fiction as well as a Bush Fellowship and the 2004 National Hispanic Heritage Award Honoree for Literature. In addition, Hispanic Business Magazine listed Benitez as one of the 100 Influential Hispanics of 2004.
Benitez's first work of non-fiction, bag lady: A Memoir, was published in March, 2006. Later that year she received one of the first United States Artists Awards and was named a USA Gund Fellow. She was also named the National Great Comebacks Award winner by ConvaTec and the Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis Foundation of America at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Benitez lives with her husband, Jim Kondrick, in Edina, Minnesota.
