WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WHO WE ARE

Pushcart Prize nominee Sofia Romero's linked story collection We Have Always Been Who We Are explores what it's like to be doubly marginalized as a Latinx woman. A US-born Latina of Puerto Rican heritage, Sofia Romero's stories—suffused with magic realism—take a startling and tender journey through crises of identity. She succeeds in doing the nearly impossible by making taboo behavior seem necessary and beautiful.

With We Have Always Been Who We Are, Sofia Romero establishes herself as an important female voice for first-generation Latinx writers. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize, “We Have Always Been Who We Are,” features disillusioned lovers who move through haunting stages of jealousy and grief (Waterwheel Review). In “Things I Can Never Get Back,” (The Blue Mountain Review) a woman reflects on her identity as a mother, daughter, and wife on the eve of a snowstorm. In “My Dress Was Made of India Ink,” an estranged wife explores, through her dreams, her longing to escape her marriage.

Influenced by the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges and appealing to fans of Jennine Capo Crucet and Julia Alvarez, Sofia Romero's collection offers heartfelt depictions of women caught between two cultures with shimmering language and a force and sensibility entirely her own.

Sofia Romero is a graduate of Wellesley College with a BA in English and an MA in English and Comparative Literature from Boston College. Her award-winning stories have appeared in Blue Mountain Review, Rigorous, Waterwheel Review, and Leon Literary Review. We Have Always Been Who We Are is her debut.