Laia Jufresa grew up in the cloud forest of Veracruz and spent her adolescence in Paris. In 2001, she moved to Mexico City and discovered she didn’t know how to cross a street. She’s been writing fiction ever since. She holds a BA from La Sorbonne University, and is the author of the short stories collection El esquinista (FETA, 2014) and the novel Umami (Literatura Random House, 2015). Umami has been translated to English and French. And the Dutch, Turkish, Italian, Polish and Danish versions are forthcoming. It was chosen as the best first novel in Spanish at the 2016 First Novel Festival in Chambéry, France, and it was the recipient of a PEN Translates Award. Laia's work has been featured in several anthologies as well as magazines such as Letras Libres, Pen Atlas, Words Without Borders and McSweeney's. In 2014 Laia was invited to write chronicles for the crossing Border Festival in The Hague, and in 2015 she was invited by the British Council Literature to be the first ever International Writer in Residence at Hay Festival in Wales. Laia has been named as one of the most outstanding young writers in Mexico as part of the 2015 project México20, the anthology of which is published by Pushkin Press.