Yaiza Berrocal Guevara (playwright, fiction writer, screenwriter; Spain) is the author of a novel, several plays and a screenplay. Her literary work includes Curling (2022), published in the UK in 2025 and forthcoming in Greek in 2026. She is currently working on her second novel, Las promesas. As a playwright, she received Spain’s Calderón de la Barca National Prize for La cadena del frío, later staged in Sala Beckett, Barcelona. Her other plays include Intenta viure sense mi, Ni temeré les feres, Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses nunca antes representadas (documentary theatre) and Flesh Market.

She is also the screenwriter of the animated feature Black Butterflies, winner of the Goya Award for Best Animated Film, as well as the Gaudí, Forqué, Quirino, and Platino awards, and has written for prime-time television series.

She has received grants and residencies from institutions including Barcelona Crea, Teatre Lliure, Fundación Antonio Gala, Spain Ministry of Culture and UNESCO, and is a member of the European CELA program for emerging writers as well as a numerary member of the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España.

Her participation is made possible by the support of SPAIN arts & culture at the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington D.C., and the generous support of Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. and other donations made to the International Writing Program. 
 

1. Do you have a plan or project in mind for your time at the residency?

Yes, I would like to review my first draft of my next novel, "Las promesas" (The promises)

2. How do you think the IWP Residency will benefit your writing craft, as well as your professional writing life?

I think I will find both the space to focus on my writing and a motivating environment to share with other writers.

3. What are you currently reading right now? Are you reading for research or pleasure?

I'm reading Kiss kiss bye bye by Claire Louise Bennett, and also re-reading El invencible verano de Liliana, by Cristina Rivera Garza.

4. What is one thing the readers and writers of Iowa City should know about you and your work?

I am interested in the particular ways neoliberalism infiltrates in our daily life and specially in our desires. My first novel, Curling, has been defined as a laboral dystopia.

5. Tell us about where you are from - what are a few favorite details you would like to share about your home?

I am from a little town near Barcelona, Llinars del Vallès. It is located in a valley and the thing I love the most is having the mountain so close.