Daína
Chaviano was born in Havana, Cuba. When she was still going through her
university studies, she won the David Prize for unpublished authors in
the science-fiction genre. It was the first such contest in the island,
in a field dominated by male authors, so the fact it was awarded to a
young
female student came as a surprise.
The winning work, Los mundos que amo (The Worlds I Love) was a collection of five stories for young readers, the longest of which served as title to the whole work. The book became a classic almost immediately, inspiring radio adaptations, a short film and even a «photo-novel» version which sold 200,000 copies in less than two months. Two years after that, the young writer got her degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Havana, and started working as literary advisor. That year she founded and started to manage the first literary science-fiction workshop in Cuba (possibly also in Latin America), called «Oscar Hurtado» in honor of the man who’s considered the father of Cuban science-fiction. She had just gathered the first anthology of his work, which she named Los papeles de Valencia el Mudo (The Writings of Valencia the Mute, Letras Cubanas, 1983). While managing the workshop she also worked on radio, where she hosted and directed a program called «El universo de la música» («The Universe of Music»), using musical pieces on mythological, mystery and science-fiction subjects. 
Soon before she had published her second book, Amoroso planeta (Loving Planet) a collection of tales which diverged from the first one in the sense that it broke the canons of traditional science fiction. In Amoroso planeta, the author began her exploration of that which was to become a leitmotif for her later on: the fusion of science fiction and mythology. In 1985, she began writing TV scripts, adapting fairy tales for the program «Había una vez» («Once upon a time»), aimed mainly at children. And that summer, for two months, she hosted a TV program dedicated to science-fiction films. The year after, she published her third book: a volume of three novellas, titled Historias de hadas para adultos (Fairy Tales for Adults). This one established a pattern indicative of what was to become her trademark: a kind of science-fiction where the psychological, supernatural and magical elements, added to the complexity of human relations, contains an implicit thesis of a  philosophical
bent. The book was made up of three stories: "La granja" ("The Farm"),
"La dama del ciervo" ("The Lady of the Deer") and "Un hada en el umbral
de la Tierra" ("A Fairy at the Threshold of Earth"). Their distinct
narrative
styles –the first one is fantasy, the second combines science-fiction
and
fantasy, and the third one is pure science fiction– are a sample of the
writer’s expertise when it comes to mixing the various genres, doling
out
the ingredients at will. The last novella, "Un hada en el umbral de la
Tierra", exploits the fusion between horror and science-fiction, spiced
it up with elements taken from fairy tales with such adept use of the
structure
that it’s impossible to put the book down once you’ve started reading
it.
By then, Daína Chaviano had left her job as literary advisor to dedicate her time entirely to writing TV scripts and books. When her first novel, Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre (Fables from an Extraterrestrial Grandmother, 1988), was published, even the most orthodox critics immediately recognized it as a staple of the genre in Spanish. 
Its original structure (it develops as three parallel, alternating stories), the language (different for each one) and the cinematographic tone of the action, carried it to first place on the Cuban best-seller list. This time, the philosophical base of the story was the interaction between magic, science and religion: another cornerstone in her literary work. Just as she does in later works –even those that aren’t science-fiction–, Chaviano summons phenomena that can be explained in opposite ways (fantasy vs. science) but whose external manifestations can be similar: magic and telekinesis, telepathy and clairvoyance, extraterrestrial creatures and mythological beings… Their fusion, at least her way of handling it, turns out to be captivating and eludes any and all clichés. The year after the publishing of Fábulas, Chaviano won the «13 de Marzo» national prize from the University of Havana for Best Literary Film Script, with a text based on «La anunciación» (from her book Amoroso planeta), co-written by Tomás Piard, who had formerly directed her as an actress in a couple of his art films. Her acting work in the short films La barrera (The Barrier) and En la noche (In the Night) received praise from critics like Arturo Arias Polo: “It’s been some time since someone with such a suggestive and wide range of expression was featured in Cuban cinema”. Piard used her once again as muse/main character in another film produced by Cuban TV: Adorable fantasma (Lovely Ghost). It was her last appearance in a film, a stint as brief and fleeting as the phantom maiden she played in this TV work. But her true passion did not lie in a glamorous movie image –which she still retains, anyway–, but in the magic of words. En 1989, her anthology Joyas de la ciencia-ficción (Science Fiction Gems, Gente Nueva, 1989) was published, with selections, prologue, notes and translations all by her. It included tales from authors of various latitudes. 
In 1990 she came out with El abrevadero de los dinosaurios (The
Dinosaurs' Watering Hole) made up of 70 vignettes, with such a
heterodox
structure and focus that even nowadays it keeps defying precise
classification.
A mixture of fantasy and utopia, parable and humor, this title
immediately
became a favorite. It goes beyond the character of a divertimento and
delves
into the taboos, alternatives and prejudices of human society in
general,
and Cuban society in particular.
The following year, the German publisher Volk und Welt brought out Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre, while Chaviano obtained the National Prize of Children’s and Young People’s Literature «La Edad de Oro» for her collection of fantasy tales País de dragones (Land of Dragons) The book was never published in Cuba because the following year, taking advantage of an invitation by the University of Quito, Ecuador, to give a series of conferences on the subjects of literature, TV and film scripts, the author decided to stay outside her country, and the Cuban government prohibited the book’s publication, together with other of her works already in press: La Nueva Ola: relatos de ciencia-ficción (The New Wave: SF stories) be a hefty anthology with selections, translations and commentaries all by Chaviano, plus the prologues to several classic works she had been commissioned to do: The Hobbit (J. R. R.Tolkien), The Neverending Story (Michael Ende), The Egyptian (Mika Waltari), Vampires (Alexei Tolstoi) y The Virgin and the Gypsy (D.H. Lawrence), The author arrived in the United States in May 1991. First she worked as editor-in-chief of two magazines. Around that time she learned the Academy of Arts in Berlin had awarded her the Anna Seghers International Prize (that annually recognize the works of young writers) in November of 1990 for her novel Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre. For three years, Chaviano worked as a reporter and translator, and had a weekly column in El Nuevo Herald. Meanwhile, she started sounding-out the book market again. But she was too unfamiliar with the international mechanisms of publishing. Some Spanish publishing houses informed her they were only interested in Spanish or Anglo-Saxon authors. She decided to ignore all the negative feedback and to keep on writing. 
Before arriving in the US, she had conceived the idea of a novel with a parapsychological bent, occurring within a very defined social context: a kind of transition between fantastic-realism (not to be confused with magical-realism) and her former works of science-fiction, whose elements would be so perfectly intertwined one might opt for interpreting it either way. The result was Gata encerrada (Cat in a Cage), the first novel in the cycle called «The Occult Side of Havana», a series of novels whose main foundation is a Havana so rarefied that at times it seems real, and at times a city peopled by phantoms, where anything can happen. Thus, without abandoning the fantasy element so typical of her writing style, the author conceived four novels that are independent from one another, but with characters who join or separate from one book to the next. However, her work did not allow her to get very far, so she decided to quit her job and shut herself up for a year and a half. During this time, she would write between eight and twelve hours a day, sometimes even on weekends. During the following two years she finished the third novel and after contacting a number of literary agents, she started sending her rèsume to some of them. 
In 1998 she found a Spanish agent who took an interest in her work, and almost simultaneously she won the Azorín Prize for Best Novel with the third work in the cycle, El hombre, la hembra y el hambre (Man, Woman and Hunger), published that year by Planeta (Barcelona). In spite of the fact that its plot is the most realistic in the entire series, it keeps two elements that are basic in science fiction and fantasy books: time-travel and interaction between living and dead characters. 
The second novel in the cycle, Casa de juegos (House of Games), was published in 1999. Its erotic, surrealistic and post-modern style contrasts not only with her former writings, but also with the rest of the novels in the series. It’s a baffling and fascinating book, due to the manner in which she handles eroticism within a dream-like and ghostly atmosphere: a true novelty in the patterns usually followed by erotic literature, where one can find Eros in all its variants, but always within a realistic frame. In 2000, after having worked as editor in various magazines from the same publishing company, she accepted the job of publisher in one of them. Shortly after that, she changed literary agents and signed a contract with a well-known entity based in New York City. 
In February 2001, her Web site appeared in Internet and it’s been expanding. Two months later, Espasa Calpe published País de dragones (Land of Dragons, Colección Espasa Juvenil), illustrated by Constante (Rapi) Diego. Ten years had gone by since she was awarded the «La Edad de Oro» Prize for it, and it contained three new tales not included in the original. En March 2003, Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre (Fables from an Extraterresrial Grandmother) was published by Oceano (Mexico). After that, her author was awarded with the Goliardos International Fantasy Award, given by Mexican authors and academics of that association to creative authors of international renown who have distinguished themselves within the fantasy genre. 
In 2006, Grijalbo (Random House Mondadori) published in Spain La isla de los amores infinitos (The Island of Eternal Love), the fourth and last novel of the series «The Occult Side of Havana». Part history, part romance, part gothic, part esoteric, the novel narrates the fortunes of three families (one Chinese, another African and a third Spanish), whose lives end up intersecting. Different magical or supernatural events conspire to make the three stories from the past begin to mix, culminating in the story of a love that must face the opposition of two families... Another parallel, modern plot revolves around the paranormal investigations of Cecilia, a young journalist researching a spectral house that appears and disappears in different parts of her city. Several witnesses claim to have seen the inhabitants of that house, whose behavior seems to hide a secret that she decides to find out... The novel pays homage to the bolero. Historical personages from the world of music mix with fictional characters and are part of the plot: Ernesto Lecuona, the pianist Joaquín Nin (father of Anaïs Nin), Beny Moré, Rita Montaner, La Lupe, and others, are historical figures caught up in the story. La isla de los amores infinitos won the Gold Medal in the Florida Book Awards 2007, for Best Spanish Language Book. The publishing rights of this novel have been sold to 20 languages.
Javier Gómez
studied literature
at the University of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, and is a contributor
to
radio stations and cultural publications in that island. He also writes
for Cuatrogatos ( http://www.cuatrogatos.org),
the largest Web site dedicated to children’s literature in Spanish.
This
biography was first published in the SF Spanish site Sitio
de Ciencia-Ficción, in the link Autores.
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