Violeta Gil

ARTIST’S PROFILE

Violeta Gil was born in Hoyuelos, a small town in Segovia, Spain, in 1983. She earned a BA in English from Complutense University and a theatre degree from the Royal Drama School, both in Madrid. In 2005, she founded La tristura, her theatre company, along with Celso Giménez and Itsaso Arana. She creates, writes, and directs works that have been presented at venues such as the Festival de Otoño in Madrid, Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, Cena Contemporânea in Brasília, Théâtre de Liège, and the Kampnagel Summer International Festival in Hamburg, among others. CINE, Future Lovers, and Renacimiento are her three most recent productions with La tristura, published by Punto de Vista Editores under the title Nuestro movimiento.

She teaches creative workshops on staging and writing at institutions such as La Casa Encendida, Escuela de Escritores, Ikusmira, and Teatros del Canal, and coordinates the Escuela de Invierno project at Conde Duque Contemporary Creation Center in Madrid.

In 2015, she moved to Iowa City, where she earned an MFA in Spanish Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. She has been an artist in residence at Yaddo, Headlands Center for the Arts, Teatros del Canal, Etopia Center for Arts and Technology, Matadero Arts Center, and La Moissie.

She is part of Una fiesta salvaje, a study and creative group focused on performative poetry. Her first poetry collection, antes de que tiréis mis cosas, was published by Arrebato Libros in 2019, and she toured for three years with a performance of the same name alongside musician Abraham Boba.

She collaborates as a dramaturg with the dance companies La Veronal, Mucha Muchacha, Julio Ruiz, and Lucía Marote. She worked with Elena López Riera on her film El Agua and with Víctor Iriarte on Sobre todo de noche as an acting coach; she has also acted in the films Las tierras del cielo by Pablo G. Canga and Así vendrá la noche by Ángel Santos.

Her first novel, Llego con tres heridas, was published in October 2022 by Caballo de Troya, a Penguin Random House imprint. It was named one of the top ten debuts of the year and earned her the Critics Award from Castilla y León. She co-translated Book of Mutter by Kate Zambreno for La Uña Rota and translated Let Them Eat Chaos and Divisible by Itself and One by Kae Tempest for Arrebato

In February 2024, she premiered her latest production with La tristura, Así hablábamos, at the National Dramatic Centre in Madrid. Her next poetry book, Andábamos maravillados, will be released in September 2025 by Arrebato. She is currently working on her next novel.

Read about Violeta’s residency project below…

“In residency she will be working on her new novel, Algo semejante a la devoción, a project in which she explores contemporary ways of engaging with faith, devotion and community, following a character who leaves behind his mennonite upbringing and travels from the U.S. to Spain to find his roots. And because she works best when combining projects, she will also be editing poems from her upcoming book, Andábamos maravillados. She hopes to be able to share some of that work during her stay.”