Born in 1949, Angeles Mastretta trained as a journalist and continues to be involved in the print media in Mexico. Writing from a feminist perspective, her novels and short stories are widely read and critically acclaimed in her native Mexico. She was the first woman to win the coveted Rómulo Gallegos prize for Mal de Amores (1996). Her work has been translated into many languages, including English.

Mastretta, Angeles (b. 1949) Mexican novelist, short story writer. Born in Puebla, Mastretta came to Mexico City to study journalism and communications at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. She is married to Hector Aguilar Camin and has two children.

Her first novel Tear This Heart Out (1985), an instant success in Mexico, has been translated into many languages. Using her storytelling skills, knowledge of history, sense of humor, and colloquial language, she weaves a two-fold tale set in Mexico of the 1940s: that of Catalina, a naive young woman, who through a process of selfdiscovery comes to have ideas of her own, and that of the political career of her husband General Andres Ascencio arid his manipulation of power.

Mujeres de ojos grandes (Big-Eyed Women, 1990) is a collection of short stories about extraordinary women who make unexpected decisions. Her second novel Lovesick (1996) moves from the pre-revolutionary years of the nineteenth century well into the twentieth century to tell the story of Emilia Sauri, who, brought up in a liberally minded family, practices non-traditional medicine and loves two men simultaneously. This work won the Premio Rumulo Gallegos in 1997 and has been widely translated.

• http://ensayo.rom.uga.edu/filosofos/mexico/mastretta/
  (in Spanish)