Michi Strausfeld

The literary mediator and editor was born in Recklinghausen and studied English, Romance and Hispanic Studies in Cologne (M.A. 1969). In 1975, she completed her doctorate in Bonn on the Latin American novel using the example of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Since 1968 she has lived in Barcelona, Bogotá, Madrid, Paris and since 2003 in Berlin and Barcelona. From 1974 to 2008, she was responsible for Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American literature at Suhrkamp/Insel Verlag and supervised around 350 publications. She coordinated international literature projects such as the literary events of Horizonte ’82 and was director of renowned children’s and young adult book series at Alfaguara and Siruela in Spain. She was a juror for the DAAD artists’ programme (1981-2003), advisor to the Berlin International Literature Festival (2001-2023) and scout for S. Fischer Verlag (2008-2015).

For her services to the promotion of Ibero-American literature, she was awarded the Order of Isabel la Católica (2009), the Medal of the Ibero-American Institute Berlin (2009), the Order of the Gran Cruz Alfonso X El Sabio (2015) and was voted one of the 50 most important personalities in Latin American cultural life in 2012.

Her publications include Gelbe Schmetterlinge und die Herren Diktatoren (2019) Gaumenfreuden. Eine kulinarische Kulturgeschichte Lateinamerikas (2023) and Die Kaiserin von Galapagos. Deutsche Abenteuer in Lateinamerika  (2025).