Cristina García (journalist)

In 2009, Garcia was hired as the visiting affiliate professor and Black Mountain Institute teaching fellow in creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She also taught at University of Texas-Austin, Texas Tech University, and Texas State University-San Marcos, where she is the 2012–2014 University Chair in Creative Writing. García's novels celebrate the memories, fantasies, and body rituals of her Cuban heritage and that of the diaspora in the United States.

García has reported experiencing unease in relating to other Cubans—both with those still in Cuba and those in exile in Florida. Some question why she writes in English. Others take issue with her lack of engagement in anti-Castro causes. She has said she attempts to emphasize in her novels the fact that "there is no one Cuban exile". In 2007 she also said that she "wanted to break free of seeing the world largely through the eyes of Cubans or Cuban immigrants. After the first three novels—I think of them as a loose trilogy—I wanted to tackle a bigger canvas, more far-flung migrations, the fascinating work of constructing identity in an increasingly small and fractured world." At this time García described this "bigger canvas" as including "the entrapments and trappings of gender in my novel", partly because "it would be easy, and overly simplistic, to frame everything in terms of equality, or cultural limitations, or other vivid measurables. What's most interesting to me are the slow, internal, often largely unconscious processes that move people in unexpected directions, that reframe and refine their own notions of who they are, sexually and otherwise."

Her second novel The Agüero Sisters (1997) won the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize.

Of García's first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, (1992) García said, "I surprised myself by how Cuban the book turned out to be. I don't remember growing up with a longing for Cuba, so I didn't realize how Cuban I was, how deep a sense I had of exile and longing." The book was nominated for the National Book Award.

After returning to the United States, García pursued a career in journalism, after having worked as a part-time "copy girl" with The New York Times. While at Johns Hopkins, she obtained an intern position with The Boston Globe and a job as a reporter for the Knoxville Journal. In 1983 she was hired by Time magazine. Beginning there as a reporter/researcher, she became the publication's San Francisco correspondent in 1985, and its bureau chief in Miami for Florida and the Caribbean region in 1987. In 1988 she was transferred to Los Angeles. She terminated her employment with Time to write fiction full-time in 1990.

García was born in Havana to a Guatemalan father, Francisco M. Garcia and Cuban mother, Esperanza Lois. In 1961, when she was two years old, her family was among the first wave of people to flee Cuba after Fidel Castro came to power. They moved to New York City, where she was raised in Queens, Brooklyn Heights, and Manhattan. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Barnard College (1979) and a master's degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (1981). She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award. She is on the editorial advisory board of Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. She has a daughter, Pilar.

Cristina García (born July 4, 1958) is a Cuban-born American journalist and novelist. Her first novel Dreaming in Cuban (1992) was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has since published her novels The Agüero Sisters (1997) and Monkey Hunting (2003), and has edited books of Cuban and other Latin American literature. A Handbook to Luck (2007) follows three children from Cuba, over twenty-six years through sacrifices and forced exiles.