Maha Vial

Maha Vial (1955-2020) was a poet and actress from Valdivia, Chile. She is the author of the books of poems La cuerda floja (Ediciones U.D.E.S, 1985), Sexilio (1994), Jony Joi (2001), Maldita Perra (2004), El asado de Bacon (2006), Territorio Cercado (2015), and Fuerza Bruta (2019), all of them published by Ricard Mendoza’s Ediciones El Kultrún. She was known for her transgressive and original voice in the literary landscape of Southern Chile, where she blended poetry and performance to talk about erotism, popular culture, feminism, and marginality. Her last book of poems, Fuerza bruta, was published a year before her death and shortly after the loss of her longtime partner, fellow writer Pedro Guillermo Jara, with whom she left an indelible mark on Chile’s literary and theatrical culture. Maha Vial left unpublished the book of poems La Poética del Monstruo and the collection of short stories Vidrio Molido.