On the 31st January 2023 we were privileged to attend a special ceremony at the Embassy of Chile in London to honour and celebrate the contribution of Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes to cultural relations between Chile and the United Kingdom.

Consuelo was born in Chile and was imprisoned and tortured during the dictatorship of Pinochet. She founded LEA, the first public Lesbian group in Concepcion, Chile. She is the author of two single authored poetry books in Spanish, La liberación de la Eva desgarrada (1990) and Arena en la Garganta (2011) and several poetry books in collaboration with other women writers: Las Sirenas andan Solas pero navegan los mismos mares (1990) Ventoleras (1992), Lejos de casa: Memoria de chilenas en Inglaterra (2010) Wonder-Makers: Navigators of the Thames (bilingual poetry, 2015) and Wonder Makers: Navigators of the Thames (bilingual short stories, 2016). She has published many academic and creative articles in journals and edited books in the UK, Ireland, Australia and Poland. She belongs to the ‘Hispano-American Women writers on Memory’ literary group and to ‘SLAP’ (Spanish and Latin American Poets). Consuelo has two master’s degrees, the first in Sociology and Gender, and the second in Literary Publishing. She has a PhD in Women’s Studies. She has worked as an academic, poet, literary editor and human rights activist. She came to live in the UK in 1992 to teach Spanish and Women’s Studies at the University of Lancaster.

Consuelo launched Victorina Press in 2017. My Beautiful Imperial was its very first publication. Since then, the press has gone on to publish many more books by award-winning authors.

It was a wonderfully joyous and moving celebration. You can read more about it on The Embassy of Chile’s own website.