Karla Suárez was born in Cuba in 1969.
She grew up in Havana, where she ended up studying Electronic Engineering, without leaving aside her interest for literature.
It can be said that the beginning of her career as a writer was the publication of some of her short stories in several anthologies and magazines. The tale Aniversario (t: Anniversary) was adapted for the stage in 1996.
Her first collection, Espuma (t: Foam) was published three years later, and two of its short stories were made into TV scripts for Cuban television.
Her debut novel Silencios (t: Silence) won the Spanish award Lengua de Trapo in 1999 and has been translated into French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Slovak.
Her second short stories' collection, Carroza para actores (t: Carriage for actors), was published in 2001.
Her second novel, La viajera (t: The traveller; 2005) has been translated into French, Portuguese and Italian.
She also wrote the stories for two books of photos collections, published in 2007: Cuba les chemins du hasard (t: Cuba, The Paths of Chance), with the Italian photographer Francesco Gattoni and Grietas en las paredes (t: Cracks), with the Luxembourgois photographer Yvon Lambert.
She got scholarships in Cuba (Razón de Ser) and France (Centre National du Livre, Paris; Maison des Ecrivains Etragers et Traducteurs, Saint-Nazaire; Agence Régionale pour l'Écrit et le Livre en Aquitanie, Bordeaux; and Clermont Communauté, Clermont-Ferrand).
In 2003, she won the Italian award for international short stories I colori delle Donne and in both 2006 and 2007 was a member of the jury for the International Literature (Short Stories) Award Juan Rulfo, sponsored by Radio France International in Paris.
In 2007, the Hay Festival and the organizers of the Bogotá World Book Capital selected Karla Suárez as one of the 39 highest profile Latin American writers under the age of 39.
In 2010 her novel Silencios was adapted for the stage in France.
Her latest novel Habana, año cero (t: Havana, year zero) won in 2012 the France Prize Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-monde and the France Prize of the Insular book.
After five years in Rome, and six years in Paris, she now lives in Lisbon since 2010 where she coordinates the Reading Club of Lisbon Institute Cervantes.
There she keeps on working as a freelance computer specialist as well as an author and a teacher of Creative Writing. In addition, she has written for Spanish newspaper El País and currently she write for the Mexican newspaper El informador.
