Ramblin': Chilean author teaches writing in Spanish

IOWA CITY - Roberto Ampuero of Iowa City may be Iowa's current best-selling author you've never read.

That's because Roberto's 12 books - 10 novels, a book of short stories and another of essays - are all written and published in Spanish. Many have been translated into another dozen languages, from Mandarin to Greek, but not into English.

Yet.

That's because his Barcelona, Spain, agent is holding out for a top offer.

“He tells me to wait. To be patient,” Roberto says.

So Roberto, 56, who has sold more than 250,000 books in his native Chile alone, rises before 6 a.m. to write before he pursues his other passion - teaching creative writing in Spanish at the University of Iowa.

“When you start class,” he says, “you feel like you have done the fiction part of your life.”

In 2005 Roberto began development of a master of fine arts program for creative writing in Spanish. It has gone from two students that first year to having three instructors, including Roberto, now.

“The reasons are very clear,” Roberto says. “Our idea was, why not offer an MFA in a country where 45 million people have a close relationship with Spanish?”

Writing well in Spanish in the United States, he says, could come in handy for students with Spanish backgrounds, for those who speak it as a second language, for diversification in business majors, for ...

“There is no better way of improving your way of expression, your own ideas,” he continues, “than writing in another language.”

Roberto knows.

English is his third language, behind Spanish and German. He also speaks and writes in Portuguese.

His is an education that has served him well in life and in his novels, especially when writing about his world-hopping private eye Cayetano Brule, who lives in Valparaiso, Chile.

These days, Roberto may be off to Chile or Columbia for a long weekend of book promotion. He recently returned from a writing conference in France. Soon, since his books will be published in Korean, he'll venture to Korea. He turns down many requests because time is of the essence.

Roberto's fascination with writing began in kindergarten, to better understand language, as he attended a German-speaking school in Chile. In 1973, during a military coup, he moved to Cuba by way of East Berlin, earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Havana. He then spent 15 years in Germany writing for the Italian News Agency. He was reporting from West Berlin when the wall came down 20 years ago.

“History was passing by my window,” Roberto says, adding that the fall of the wall provides the backdrop for the novel he's currently writing.

In Bonn he met Ana Rivera, the Guatemalan ambassador to Germany. She would become his wife and they would soon move to Sweden for another ambassadorship.

He first came to Iowa City in 1996, invited to participate in the International Writing Program. He returned in 2000 to earn advanced degrees, to open up a new chapter in his life.

“I fell in love with Iowa City and the IWP.

I was impressed with

the role writing and culture has in the university.”

Roberto could live comfortably anywhere in the world off book royalties - “El Caso Neruda” is third on Chile's best-seller list a year after its release. But, for now, he chooses Iowa City and its opportunity to teach writing in his native tongue.