Irene Vilar | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | c. 1969 (age 54–55) Arecibo, Puerto Rico [1] |
Occupation |
|
Nationality | Puerto Rican |
Alma mater | Syracuse University |
Notable awards | Guggenheim Fellow, Winner of City of Denver Office of Sustainability Community Builder 2016 Love This Place Award, Winner of City of Denver Mayor's Awards for Excellence in Arts & Culture 2017 Imagine 2020 |
Spouse | Pedro Cuperman (divorced) [2] |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | Lolita Lebrón (grandmother) |
Website | |
www |
Irene Vilar (born c. 1969) is a Puerto Rican American editor, literary agent, environmental advocate, and author of several books dealing with national and generational trauma and women's reproductive rights.
Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico in 1969, [3] Vilar is the granddaughter of Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebrón, who participated in an assault on the United States House of Representatives in 1954. [4] After her mother's suicide in 1977, she attended boarding school in New Hampshire at age 15 before enrolling at Syracuse University where she married her literature professor, Pedro Cuperman. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Her work The Ladies' Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets (originally published in 1996) was a Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit Free Press notable book of the year, a finalist for the Mind Book of the Year Award and the Latino Book Award. [1] Her memoir, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict (published in 2009), revealed that the author had 15 abortions in 17 years. Vilar received death threats after its publication. [6] It won the 2010 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Memoir/Autobiography and the 12th Latino Book 2nd Place Award for Best Women’s Issues. [3]
She founded her own literary agency, Vilar Creative Agency, and serves as a co-agent in the United States for Ray-Gude Mertin Literary Agency, an agency specializing in Spanish, Latin American, and Portuguese authors, which represented writers as 1998 Nobel Prize laureate Jose Saramago. [8] In 2007, Vilar founded the Colorado and Puerto Rico based non-profit Americas for Conservation + the Arts and is its current executive director. [3] [9]
In 2010, Vilar was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for her nonfiction writing. [10] Also that year, she gave the keynote at the 2010 National Convention of State Senators and Legislators Hispanic Caucus on Latino Mental Health, “Severe Depressive Disorder: Overcoming Adversity and Stigma” where she talks about the trauma she experienced growing up and in her marriage. [5] She serves on the advisory council of the Colorado Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry and the Green Leadership Trust. [11]
After Hurricane Maria in 2017, Vilar founded the Resilience Fund through her non-profit to help farmers restore their farms. [12]