Luis Gallegos
I was born in Peru, in the Andes to be exact, and for many years I never imagined that I would one day end up writing books.
When I was fourteen, a career aptitude test suggested that the arts and literature were the paths I should follow. I chose a different direction and studied engineering instead. My creative side was pushed into the background, and for years I devoted myself entirely to technology, until there came a point when I felt that part of me could no longer wait.
Madrid was where I decided to reconnect with that forgotten side of myself. There, I studied creative writing and theatre and began writing my first book. Most of my early stories were born in Madrid, but I finished that book years later in Prague, the city where I now live.
That second city also became the starting point for my second book.
In this way, two very different places ended up becoming part of my story as a writer. Madrid, where I started writing, and Prague, where I finished my first book, wrote my second, and began my third, which is still a work in progress.
Perhaps that is also why these two places are so important to me, and why there is always something of them in what I write. I was born in the Andes, yes, but it was in Madrid that I discovered writing, and in Prague that I continue to enjoy it.
After all, perhaps that test I took at fourteen wasn't so wrong after all.
