Sandra Benítez is a remarkable storyteller, stated a Boston Globe review. Her work gives voice to the lost river of stories of humble, hopeful people: Salvadoran servants, coffee pickers, ranchito owners working their small plots of land, Mexican paper-flower makers, hotel chambermaids, mid-wives, and salad-makers. Though Benítez was born in Washington, D.C. and makes her home in Minnesota, her life has been colored and enhanced by the dynamic culture of her Puerto Rican mother and the Anglo-American culture of her Missourian father. Benítez?s heart brims with the stories of a youth lived in Mexico and El Salvador.

She is the critically acclaimed author of four novels, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, which won the first Barnes & Noble Discover Award and a Minnesota Book Award; Bitter Grounds, which won an American Book award; The Weight of All Things; and Night of the Radishes. Her work has been translated into six languages and is frequently included on high school and university reading curricula.

In addition, Benítez is a creative writing teacher and lecturer. She is a past Keller-Edelstein Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Minnesota, and was a recipient of the Knapp Chair in Humanities at the University of San Diego. Benítez has recently completed her first non-fiction book, Bag Lady: How one Woman Turned the Sow's Ear of a Chronic Disease into the Silk Purse of a Fulfilling Life. The book is an account of her 30-year struggle with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and her acceptance of the Ileostomy surgery that changed her life.