Magali García Ramis

Magali García Ramis (born 1946, Santurce, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican writer.

Biography Magali García Ramis was born in 1946 in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico and spent her childhood there with her mother, father and brothers, near her mother's family, with close relations with uncles, cousins and her maternal grandmother.

Her father was a civilian worker in Fort Buchanan; her mother worked in her sister's laboratory for a while and later stayed home with her children. Her eldest aunt, María Luisa Ramis, was the first woman in Puerto Rico to open a laboratory and all her aunts worked there. As a teenager, her family moved to the upscale Miramar section and she and her elder brother had to change schools. She enrolled at the Academia del Perpetuo Socorro (Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help), where she graduated from high school.

Education and literary contributions

In 1964 she enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico where she majored in history. After graduating, she worked for the newspaper El Mundo. In 1968 she received a scholarship and moved to New York City to study journalism at Columbia University. It is in New York that she writes her first story, "Todos los domingos" ("Every Sunday").

With this story she won first prize in the literary contest of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Athenaeum). She returned to Puerto Rico in 1971 In 1988, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her second novel, Las horas del Sur (The Hours of the South). In 1993, García Ramis published La ciudad que me habita (The City that Inhabits Me), a collection of journalistic essays that she wrote over the years, while she worked for El Mundo, El Imparcial, Avance, Claridad and La Hora. and has to be linked to other leading authors of the 70s generation, such as Rosario Ferré and Olga Nolla. In 2009 she entered the Puerto Rican Academy of the Spanish Language. She currently works in literary and historical projects and studies doctoral studies in history at the Center for Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

Themes and influences García Ramis's stories are depictions of Puerto Rican culture, family and politics. She writes about interactions within a family, Puerto Rican identity and women's identity.

In her best known work of fiction, Happy Days, Uncle Sergio, she explores the relationship between a young Puerto Rican tomboy and her uncle, who is rumored to be a homosexual.

Literary works Novels Felices días, tío Sergio Las horas del sur

Essays La ciudad que me habita La R de mi padre y otras letras familiares Los cerebros que se van y el corazón que se queda Hostos, bróder, esto está difícil El Chango como pájaro nacional

Short stories La familia de todos nosotros Las noches del riel de oro Una semana de siete días En la cabaña del tiempo escondido