About Carolina Casanova

Creativity never stayed neatly within the lines. When my art teacher asked us to create something symbolic from clay, most classmates made apples, flowers or simple figures. I sculpted a woman giving birth, her stomach opened to reveal the umbilical cord running through her vagina and wrapping around her leg while the newborn sat on her knee, looking back at her mother. The piece was called Enough Is Enough. Some classmates whispered there had to be something terribly wrong with me. My teacher gave me one of the highest grades. I remember laughing to myself. I never cared much what people thought. If anything, I enjoyed leaving people slightly shocked. I still do.

Whether I’m solving problems in the corporate world or writing books, my greatest strength has always been thinking outside the box. I like creating what people don’t expect. I like saying the things most people only dare to think. Sometimes it makes people laugh, sometimes it makes them blush, and occasionally it makes them wonder what the hell they just read.

Life eventually became busy. I became a single mother, built a career in fintech, moved to Amsterdam, and somewhere between enjoying time with my son, deadlines, parties and dating, writing quietly disappeared into the background. The creativity never left; it simply found other ways to express itself, from organising unforgettable events to transforming the local bar into an elaborate Halloween spectacle that left visitors standing in the doorway with their mouths open.

Everything changed when my son outgrew me in height. I began spending more time in Guatemala, stopped drinking, smoking, dating and partying after midnight, and stepped out of the WhatsApp group I had created to organise my events. My world became much smaller, my mind much calmer, leaving an unexpected space waiting to be filled. With perfect timing, my friend—who happened to be a publisher—asked me to capture Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, the wild, messy place that had stolen my heart. I couldn’t stop writing. I filled page after page with stories about volcanoes, cafés, street dogs, remarkable people and the strange magic that makes the lake unlike anywhere else in the world. Before I knew it, I had written an entire book.

That same friend then asked about the manuscript I’d started in 2009. The Rose had begun as a battle of poems between my friend Miriam and me on social media, written simply to entertain, provoke and tell the truth without shame. I never intended anyone else to read it. I hadn’t even finished it. After reading the manuscript, she called me and said, “This has to be published. The world needs this.” So I finished what my younger self had started.

Today I write fearless stories that refuse to stay hidden. Stories about love, grief, desire, friendship, family, courage, loss and everything in between. I don’t write to shock people. I write to tell the stories most people are afraid to tell. The fact that they sometimes shock people is simply a bonus. I’ve read a poem about making love to Jan the policeman for the first time at corporate work events without getting fired. I’ve watched audiences laugh, blush, cry and occasionally leave the room. I take that as a compliment.

My books don’t fit neatly into a single genre. Neither do I.