Ingrid Rojas Contreras on Losing (& Finding) Her Past

Photo: Jamil Hellu

“The amnesia gave me such a large feeling of wonder and awe, and a love for these stories that I could then write from that point of view. That was the missing element that I didn’t have before.”

Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her latest book, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, was longlisted for the National Book Award in Non-Fiction. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor’s choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and Zyzzyva, among others. She lives in California.