Gonzalo Lira (born February 29, 1968) is an
American novelist and
filmmaker born in
Burbank, California
He is the son of Gonzalo Lira Valdés and María Isabel López Hess; he is a descendant of
José Miguel Carrera,.
[1] He grew up in the
San Fernando Valley,
New York City, and
Miami, as well as
Guayaquil,
Ecuador. He completed high school at
St. George’s College in
Santiago, Chile, in 1985. He attended
Dartmouth College in 1991, graduating with honors in 1995, with a degree in history and philosophy.
His first novel was
Counterparts, a commercial thriller published in 1997. His first Spanish language novel was
Tomáh Errázurih, a highly experimental coming-of-age story published in 1998.
After moving to lower
Manhattan in 1998, Lira wrote, produced and directed a comic short film,
So Kinky. He worked developing
video games such as
Soldier of Fortune.
[2] He wrote his next novel,
Acrobat, in 2002. The novel was subsequently purchased by
Miramax to be turned into a motion picture. In 2002, he moved to
Chile. He began writing and producing Spanish language feature films. He co-wrote, produced and directed the film
Catalina’s Kidnapping, a Spanish language thriller in 2006.
[3]
Starting in 2010, Lira began contributing economic analysis to
Zero Hedge and
naked capitalism and
Business Insider.