Who was Lucia Berlin?

Lucia Berlin (1936–2004) was an American short-story writer who gained significant posthumous acclaim for her semi-autobiographical fiction.

Her work is noted for its gritty, honest, and often darkly humorous portrayal of the lives of working-class people. She drew heavily on her own complex life experiences, which included growing up in mining towns in the American West, living in Chile, working a variety of jobs—such as a nurse, cleaning woman, and teacher—and struggling with alcoholism.

For much of her career, her writing was published in small literary journals and enjoyed a devoted but relatively small cult following. Her broader recognition arrived in 2015 with the publication of the collection A Manual for Cleaning Women, which brought her work to a wide international audience and established her as a major voice in 20th-century American literature.