Roberto Ampuero (Valparaíso, Chile, 1953) is a Chilean author, columnist, and a university professor. His first novel ¿Quién mató a Kristián Kustermann?was published in 1993 and in it he introduced his private eye, Cayetano Brulé, winning the Revista del Libro prize of El Mercurio.

Since then the detective has appeared in five novels. In addition he has published an autobiographical novel about his years in Cuba titled Nuestros Años Verde Olivo in 1999 and the novels Los Amantes de Estocolmo (Book of the Year in Chile, 2003 and the bestseller of the year in Chile)) and Pasiones Griegas (chosen as the Best Spanish Novel in China, 2006). His novels have been published in Latin America and Spain, and have been translated into German, French, Italian, Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Greek, and Croatian.

In Chile his works have sold more than 40 editions. Ampuero now resides in Iowa where he is a professor at the University of Iowa in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He was a columnist of La Tercera and the New York Times Syndicate and since March 2009 has been working as a columnist for El Mercurio.

Roberto Ampuero Espinoza was born in Valparaiso in 1953, as the son of Roberto Ampuero Brule and Angelica Espinoza. He grew up in a “porteña middle class family who leaned to the political right,” his maternal grandmother was French and his dad, worked during World War II for the exterior service of information for the United States. In his first years, he carried out his studies in the David Trumbull Presbyterian School, and later in the German school Deutsche Schule of Valparaiso (DSV) because his parents considered it to be an “excellent private school that was near the house” and they like it for its “demanding curriculum, discipline, education, and language programs.” While he was there, he learned to read and write in German.

He studied there for 12 years, completing his schooling in 1971 with a GPA of 5.8 (from 1-7). Years later, he says “If it wasn’t for this school, I wouldn’t have lived in Germany and met my wife. DSV taught me to be disciplined and serious with what I do, to not waste time, to take difficult situations in stride, to be frugal and simple, and to experience and live in other cultures.” In addition, he thanks DSV for helping him to become closer to writers such as Goethe, Schiller, Brecht, and Mann, and remembers that the school “marked my decision to travel the world with my nomadic soul.” After living 17 years in Valparaiso, Ampuero moved in 1972 to the capital of the country, Santiago, to matriculate into the University of Chile.

There he studied Social Anthropology in the mornings and Latin American Literature in the afternoons. Around this time, he became a member of the Chilean Communist Youth. He says that “When I was young, I was a part of the Communist Youth because I believed that the socialism was democratic, just, and economically prosperous.” After the coup d’etat at the end of December in 1973, he decided to depart for Eastern Germany.

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