Barbara Southard

Barbara Southard grew up in New York City, holds a PhD in history from the University of Hawaii, and has served as a professor of history and associate dean of graduate studies at the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico. She is the author of a book on Indian history, The Women’s Movement and Colonial Politics in Bengal, and The Pinch of the Crab, a collection of ten stories set in Puerto Rico. In addition to winning the IPPY silver medal for Historical Fiction, her novel, Unruly Human Hearts, was a finalist in the American Fiction Awards for Literary Fiction and the CIBA Goethe Book Awards for Late Historical Fiction. Barbara has also been active in raising funds for the Shonali Choudhury Fund of the Community Foundation of Puerto Rico, which helps local community organizations working to protect women from domestic violence. She does this work in honor of her daughter, a public health professor who died of a brain tumor.