Sofía Segovia

Sofía Segovia (born 1965) is a Mexican writer. She is best known for her 2015 novel, The Murmur of Bees, which has been translated into 22 languages. Segovia studied communications and wrote her first novel, Hurricane Night, in the early 2000s, but was unable to find a publisher until 2010. A native of northern Mexico, Segovia emphasizes the importance of regional and underrepresented perspectives in her writing.

Early life Segovia was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 1965. She has said that it was difficult to be an aspiring writer in her part of northern Mexico. When she submitted her first manuscripts, she considered her association with Monterrey a greater obstacle to publication than her gender. She graduated from the University of Monterrey with a degree in communications in 1989.

Segovia recalled hearing stories of her grandfather's life in Linares, an agricultural town in Nuevo León. These stories provided the "color, flavor, sound, and dimension" of her future novel, (The Murmur of Bees). ghostwriter, and image consultant. She also wrote scripts, including for local amateur theater.

Literary career In 2000, Segovia saw an advertisement for a writing workshop in the newspaper El Norte. The book follows the life of Aniceto Mora on the Mexican island of Cozumel, where the effects of two hurricanes shape his relationship with his son, Manuel. However, she has acknowledged that the violence in the book would not have been as well received if it had been published sooner.

The Murmur of Bees was first released in 2015. It went on to sell 1.5 million copies and was translated into 22 languages, Set during the Mexican Revolution, it focuses on a boy with a cleft lip and mysterious powers. She named the protagonist "Simonopio" based on her grandfather's story about curing a child named Simón of pneumonia using a mustard plaster. It tells the story of Prussian refugees after World War II, based on the lives of Arno Schipper and Ilse Hahlbrock, immigrants to Mexico whose children she had known for 38 years. Arno was already deceased by the time of publication and Segovia relied on archival interviews. She has said that she was hesitant to try writing professionally and did not begin her first novel until she was 35. Her use of flashbacks and flash-forwards focuses on character psychology over linear progression. Although her work is often categorized as magical realism, Segovia attributes the "magic" in her prose to the mysteries of the environment and her Latin American heritage.

Works Fiction (2009; reissued as , 2016) (2015; published in English as The Murmur of Bees, 2019) (2019) (anthology, edited by Luis Felipe Lomelí, 2019) Nonfiction (2025)