Francisco Aguilera

Born in Santiago de Chile in 1974. He spent his childhood in the countryside, in the town of Malloco, exactly 29 kilometres from Santiago, among animals, fruit trees and imaginary friends. He was a lonely child, though he hardly realised it. He returned to the capital as a teenager, to finish high school at a school run by French priests. This would instil in him a certain dread of ecclesiastical art. In Santiago he graduated as a social anthropologist from the University of Chile. At the age of 25 he travelled to Paris, where he now lives. In his other life as an anthropologist, he worked briefly with indigenous peoples in northern Chile. In France, he has worked as a language teacher, translator, pollster and bookseller. He is the author of the novel Sin Norte [Without North], winner of the Fray Luis de León Narrative Prize in 2008, published in Spain and Chile.