Quiara Alegria Hudes: When a woman leaves, there is always another woman to provide care in her place. I rebel against that'

"The playwright of Puerto Rican descent rose to fame for her original soundtrack of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights, for which she was nominated for a Tony. After being nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for theater on three occasions, she won it in 2012 for Water by the Spoonful, in which she tells the story of a Puerto Rican soldier returning from the Iraq war and having to navigate his birth family, addiction and identity crisis."

"Since then, the writer's life has taken many detours, passing through motherhood, caring for sick family members and activism, the latter via her letter exchange project with incarcerated individuals, Emancipated Stories. From her house in Philadelphia, the city that has long been the anchor to her personal life as well as her stories, she tells how for the first time, she has a project that is not based on the experience of someone from her own community, one that is pure fiction."

Quiara Alegría Hudes credits writing and reading with saving her life in recent years. She rose to prominence for her work on Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights and won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Water by the Spoonful, a play about a Puerto Rican soldier returning from the Iraq war confronting family, addiction and identity. Her life has included motherhood, caregiving and activism through a letter-exchange project with incarcerated people called Emancipated Stories. Philadelphia serves as the anchor for her life and work. She shifted to fiction after recognizing her grandmother's untold American story and the need for more Latina narratives in literature.

Read at english.elpais.com