Marie Arana was born in Lima, Peru. She is the author of the memoir American Chica, a finalist for the National Book Award; two novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights; and The Writing Life, a collection from her well-known column for The Washington Post. She lives in Washington, DC, and Lima, Peru.
Simon Bolivar has found the perfect biographer in Marie Arana, a literary journalist, brilliant novelist of South America, and wise historian as well. Her portrait of Bolivar is human and moving; she has written a powerful and epic life and times. --Evan Thomas, author of Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Struggle to Save the World Wonderful. . . . In Arana's energetic and highly readable telling, Bol var comes alive as having willed himself an epic life. . . . She brings great verve and literary flair to her biography of Bol var. --Hector Tobar The Los Angeles Times Arana is an indefatigable researcher, a perceptive historian, and a luminous writer, as shown in her defining, exhilarating biography of the great South American liberator Sim n Bol var. --Booklist (starred review, Top 10 Biographies of the Year) Thrilling, authoritative and revelatory, here at last is a biography of Bolivar, the maker of South America, that catches the sheer extraordinary unique adventure and titanic scale of his life with accessible narrative and scholarly judgement. --Simon Sebag Montefiore Finally, Bolivar gets the sweeping biography he deserves. He was the greatest leader in Latin American history, and his tale is filled with lessons about leadership and passion. This book reads like a wonderful novel but is researched like a masterwork of history. --Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs Bolivar is magisterial in scope, written with flair and an almost cinematic sense of history happening. . . . A monumental achievement destined to win some major literary prizes. --Joseph J. Ellis Washington Post Book World