"Irene Vilar is a writer of extraordinary passion, erudition, and intelligence"---Tobias Wolff

"Stunning. A Lyrical and visionary memoir of depression, Puerto Rican identity, and young womanhood"---
Kirkus Review on "The Ladies' Gallery (starred)

"Startling, raw, and affecting, a painful exercise in which memoir as therapy becomes memoir as art"---
Philadelphia Inquirer Notable Book of the Year (by Carlin Romano)

Irene Vilar was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, in 1969. She attended middle and high school in Puerto Rico, New Hampshire, and Castellon de la Plana, Spain, and in 1984 matriculated at Syracuse University, in New York State. In 1990 she completed her first book, a memoir, subsequently translated into English by Gregory Rabassa and published by Pantheon Books, Random House, in 1996. “A Message from God in the Atomic Age,” published in paperback as “The Ladies Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets” (Vintage, N.Y., 1998) received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly and was named notable book of the year by the Detroit Free Press and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The memoir was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, Univison, CBS, PBS La Plaza with Ilan Stavans, WHYY 91FM - Voices In The Family among many other radio talk shows across the country, Vogue magazine, New York Times Magazine, and in the front page of the Arts section of The New York Times. The Granta edition in the UK was short listed for the 1999 Mind Book of the Year Award. There is a German Aufbau-Verlag edition of the book. Irene Vilar has been an active lecturer in the past years participating in writing conferences at Colgate University, Haverford College, Stony Brook State University of New York, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Lemoyne College, Miami University and varied organizations for the arts. In 2001 she participated in the newly founded The New York Times Latino Voices/Voces Nuevas speaker series. In 2002 she began an MFA in non-fiction at Bennington College. Irene Vilar was managing editor from 1990 to 1998 of Point of Contact magazine, a journal of the verbal and visual arts, published in part by the School of Arts and Sciences of Syracuse University. She worked as acquisitions editor at Syracuse University Press from 1999 to 2002 where she oversaw acquisitions for all Jewish Studies series books, including the prestigious Library of Modern Jewish Literature. From 2001 to 2005 she served as founder and Series Editor of The Americas series published by the University of Wisconsin Press. During her tenure at UWPress Vilar published fourteen titles. Currently she is series co-editor for the University of Alaska Press, Literary agent for Vilar Creative Agency, and co-agent in the US for Ray-Gude Mertin Literary Agency, an agency specializing in Spanish, Latin American, and Portuguese authors, representing such notable writers as Nobel prize winner Jose Saramago. Vilar is a member of PEN, The Authors Guild, National Writers Union, and MLA.

AS SERIES EDITOR CURRENTLY SCOUTING BOOKS:

The University of Alaska Press plans to launch a new book series on the
concept and realities of Wilderness around the world. While Alaska's
wilderness and its preservation will remain at the core of our efforts, the
series will also focus on the global efforts and issues that are being made
to preserve and sustain wilderness areas worldwide. The series will publish
a mix of books dealing with the politics and philosophy of wilderness, the
anthropology and biology of wilderness, the geography and topography of
wilderness, and the literature, art and photography of wilderness. The
series will also publish books of fiction and poetry on wilderness.

AS AGENT ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS:

Scouting militant nonfiction (nature/wilderness/science/memoir/ cultural/women studies), world literary fiction, children's.