2008 Phenomenal Woman Awardee Graciela Limón

Graciela Limón is a Latina/Chicana writer and a native of Los Angeles, California.

She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Spanish Literature from Marymount College, Los Angeles, a Master of Arts Degree in the same field from the University of the Americas in Mexico City, followed by a Doctoral Degree in Latin American Literature from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Until recently, Limón has been a professor of U.S. Hispanic Literature as well as Chair of the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. She is now Professor Emerita of that university as well as a Visiting Professor at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara.

Limón has written and published reviews and critical work on Mexican, Latin American and Caribbean Literature. She has now concentrated her writing efforts on creative fiction, including In Search of Bernabé (1993), which won The Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award (1994). The novel has been released in Spanish under the title En busca de Bernabé (1997). Limón has also published The Memories of Ana Calderón (1994), Song of the Hummingbird (1996), which was published in Spanish under the title of La canción del colebri, in April 2006. The Day of the Moon (1999), was also published in Spanish as El dia de la luna (2006). Erased Faces, which was awarded the 2002 Gustavus Myers Book Award, was published in 2001. Her latest novel, Left Alive, was released in September 2005. All of Limón's novels have been published by Arte Público Press, University of Houston, Texas.

Limón's fiction has been anthologized in In Other Words:Literature by Latina Writers of the United States, (Arte Público Press1994), Latinas: Borderland Voices (Simon & Schuster 1995), The Hispanic Literary Companion (Visible Ink Press 1997), American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context (Houghton, Mifflin 2001), Herencia (Oxford Press, 2002), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (Heyday Books, Berkeley 2003), Chicanos, Latinos & Cultural Diversity (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 2004).